OpenAI wants ChatGPT to be the app store for AI — and it’s bringing Adobe along

SAN FRANCISCO, September 30 - OpenAI unveiled a more budget-friendly AI model and always-on tools, aiming to rebrand ChatGPT as an app store for artificial intelligence. The San Francisco-based firm, which boasts a user base of 1.2 billion people, will now allow third-party businesses like Adobe to embed their software within ChatGPT.

ChatGPT subscribers will also have the ability to utilize subscriptions across other applications. During his keynote address at the annual developer conference, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman pledged to foster a marketplace where users could discover and connect with creators, while emphasizing the need to prioritize safety, monitoring, and security alongside model advancement.

The freshly introduced model, GPT-6.1 Sol, is positioned to be nearly as powerful as its predecessor, GPT-6 Astra, yet at a significantly lower cost. This comes after OpenAI scrapped a new version of Astra due to its tendency to disregard instructions. Concurrently, a group of around thirty protestors gathered outside the event, advocating for OpenAI to halt partnerships with the US military and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Inside the conference, Altman dismissed comparisons between the AI age and the Industrial Revolution, instead drawing parallels to the Renaissance. The event introduced "dots," OpenAI's autonomous software agents capable of automatically carrying out tasks like calendar management and email sorting, which will be accessible to paying subscribers.

These agents, however, are presently unavailable to individual users in the EU, Switzerland, and the UK due to regulatory constraints. Despite the early success of ChatGPT, OpenAI's rival Anthropic recently surpassed the company in second-quarter revenue, amassing US$11.6 billion (RM47.3 billion) compared to OpenAI's US$6.7 billion.

Both companies' annual recurring revenues are projected to reach US$100 billion by year-end, with OpenAI having surpassed US$70 billion in July. OpenAI's CEO acknowledged that the company will continue to invest in safety, security, and alignment mechanisms, but stated that a public listing remains a future objective, as they intend to prioritize these aspects before undergoing another round of investor scrutiny.