OpenAI's super app plan: ChatGPT becomes a personalized AI agent

OpenAI is betting big on transforming ChatGPT from a simple chatbot into a 'super app' — a personalized AI agent that handles tasks across every facet of personal and professional life. The company has appointed Thibault Sottiaux as head of core products, overseeing both ChatGPT and Codex, with the mission to merge them into a unified platform. Sottiaux, who previously built Codex into one of OpenAI's fastest-growing revenue streams, now reports directly to Greg Brockman. To focus resources, OpenAI has shuttered stand-alone products like Sora and its scientist AI platform, while several executives have left. Sottiaux describes the task as 'incredibly exciting and mildly terrifying,' given ChatGPT's nearly a billion weekly active users.

The super app vision goes beyond typical Asian platforms like WeChat. Sottiaux says the goal is to build the 'world's best personal agent that deeply understands what humans care about.' Over the next year, ChatGPT will become 'delightfully proactive,' delivering the right information at the right time. Codex will largely power the agent behind the scenes, handling tasks like making dinner reservations, filing expense reports, or reminding users of dietary restrictions. OpenAI hopes this transformation will reassert its lead in the AI race, accelerate growth toward an IPO, and fend off competition from Google and Anthropic. Sottiaux's engineering roots at DeepMind (working on AlphaGo) and his hands-on approach with developers give him unique insight, but now he must think about what the average user wants from AI.