Internal statements cited in The Financial Times reveal how OpenAI is preparing what could be the biggest change for ChatGPT since its launch in November 2022. The company It already has 1,000 million users of the free version of its models, but wants to increase the number of those who pay, and the key is the change of approach.
chat is dead. The summary of the approach is in the phrase “Chat is dead”, uttered by a senior company official under anonymity. Keeping 1 billion users using the chatbot for free requires enormous computing power and therefore money. That does not seem to have a clear return at the moment, so the company no longer sees ChatGPT as the final product, but as a gateway to hook the user and gradually convince them to use the company’s paid services, such as ChatGPT Plus.
A super app on the horizon. The objective, say sources close to the company, is to launch a super app that combines both programming tools and AI agents, which will make it possible to add paying subscribers to a platform that needs to eat income. Especially considering that its IPO is imminentjust sent documentation to the SEC to prepare for that move.
Codex as the center of everything. The idea here is to turn Codex into that revenue engine that ChatGPT has not been. Following the launch of the desktop application in February 2026, Codex has already multiplied its weekly active user base by six, and now exceeds 5 million. While ChatGPT has a small proportion of paying users, the vast majority of Codex users pay a subscription.
Third-party apps and services. The ChatGPT interface redesign is expected to begin rolling out in the coming weeks on both the web and mobile apps. In a first phase ChatGPT will “direct” users to third-party services such as Canva or Booking, they say in the FT. The idea is that over time OpenAI will get rid of prompts so that its models understand the intention of their users when they use the website or the app.
Agents in power. The new approach considers that the real value of the market is not in writing poems or summarizing texts, but in using agents that help us both personally and professionally. According to those responsible cited in the newspaper, the classic distinction between a web search engine, a chatbot and an AI agent for programming will disappear so that the future ChatGPT will be crazy without us realizing it. Thibault Sottiaux, who did speak officially, confirmed that they were preparing “a personal agent who is capable of helping you in any facet of your life, whether personal or professional.”
Reasonable criticism. Photo users like Reddit They have reacted with clear criticism to this news. Existing ChatGPT Plus subscribers enjoy nearly unlimited conversational access and, separately, “credits” via the Codex programming API. If everything is merged into a new super app, these users fear that this theoretical unified agent will end up consuming an account’s tokens much faster and the pay-per-use model will harm them all. If the evolution of these models has taught us anything, it is that In fact, agents have made using AI (quite a bit) more expensive for intensive users.
Mass adoption is no longer enough. When the AI race began, OpenAI seemed to be happy to attract the largest possible volume of users even at the cost of putting revenue at risk. They believed that they would end up capturing that part sooner or later, but Anthropic appeared on the scene. Amodei’s company has managed to attract paying users – business users – and now OpenAI sees how its initial strategy does not seem to work.
In Xataka | Anthropic’s IPO is very similar to the one Netscape carried out in 1995. That is worrying
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