The GPT Store is open for business, providing curated, searchable access to millions of chatbots tailored for specific purposes.
What’s new: OpenAI launched the GPT Store for paid ChatGPT accounts, making it far easier to find useful GPTs (instances of ChatGPT conditioned by user-submitted prompts). The store lets subscribers browse by category, search by keywords, and create their own chatbots. The company introduced GPTs in November as a free offering without search or curation.
How it works: Access to the store is rolling out in phases and isn’t yet available to all subscribers as of this writing.
- The store organizes GPTs in categories such as education, productivity, and programming as well as those that prompt the DALL·E image generator. It also highlights “featured” and “trending” GPTs and branded offerings from companies like AllTrails (hiking/running routes and advice), Canva (graphic design), and Consensus (scientific literature search).
- Users can create GPTs by selecting the editor and prompting ChatGPT with instructions for chatbot’s function and what information it can access; for example, “Make an app that creates an auction listing for an uploaded photo of any item.” The system asks follow-up questions to refine the GPT’s scope, likely users, and the like. Completed GPTs can be listed publicly in the store directory.
- OpenAI plans to launch a revenue sharing program to reward creators of popular GPTs. Further details are not yet available.
Why it matters: The GPT Store strengthens ChatGPT’s utility as a platform for others to build upon and seems designed to drive paid subscriptions. It enables developers to share applications based on OpenAI’s technology and holds out hope that they’ll be rewarded for their effort.
We’re thinking: The GPT concept enables anyone, even without a background in coding, to build and share powerful applications quickly and easily. The current implementation seems like a toe in the water. If it proves popular, it could significantly deepen OpenAI’s moat, as the Apple and Android stores have done for Apple and Google respectively.