đź”— Originally published on LinkedIn
There’s a feeling in the air that’s hard to shake. The kind of quiet excitement that bubbles up just before something big happens.
If you’ve been following OpenAI’s latest moves, you’ll have seen the launch of the ChatGPT App SDK; a developer framework that allows anyone to build branded, interactive experiences directly inside ChatGPT. Alongside it comes the promise of a dedicated App Store, a discovery layer for users to browse, "install", and interact with these experiences mid-conversation.
If that sounds familiar, it should. Because for those of us who remember the dawn of the iPhone, this feels a lot like déjà vu.
This is ChatGPT’s App Store moment and if history is any guide, everything’s about to change.
If you prefer to watch rather than read, we held a TNTN Live session on all of this.
For everyone else, keep reading to understand why we think this is such a big deal.
When Apple launched the App Store back in 2008, it didn’t just create a new way to install software. It created a new distribution channel. A way for brands, creators, and developers to meet users in the moment, wherever they were.
For us that moment defined our origin story. We saw an entirely new interface to the internet. Small, tactile, intimate. And we built one of the UK’s first mobile app development studios around it. Fifteen years later, we’re watching that same tectonic shift play out again.
The context is different, but the pattern is the same. When a new 'digital surface' emerges, it changes how people discover, decide, and do.
The web was about browsing. Mobile was about doing. ChatGPT is about conversing.
Each time, the brands who adapt first set the expectations for everyone else.
At the time of writing (November 2025), ChatGPT boasts around 800 million active users. An extraordinary number, especially when you consider the original iPhone had just 1.4 million users when the App Store launched. That’s the scale of the opportunity.
Those users aren’t just searching or scrolling. They’re talking. They’re using natural language to plan trips, write emails, find products, and make decisions. Increasingly, ChatGPT is the first place they go when they want to think something through or get something done.
And soon, they’ll be able to complete that journey without ever leaving the chat window.
This matters because it bridges the gap between talking to an AI and interacting with a brand.
With the App SDK, OpenAI is inviting developers to bring their own branded experiences directly into ChatGPT’s conversational flow. The demos tell the story well:
These aren’t generic chat plugins. They’re fully branded, interactive interfaces that appear inside ChatGPT. Think of it as a mini-app running in the middle of a conversation, guided by user intent.
This shift is subtle but profound.
When you used a website, you navigated through menus and pages. When you used a mobile app, you tapped through screens. In ChatGPT, you simply express intent e.g “I’m looking for a unique gift for my friend who loves hiking” and the system decides what to do next.
At that point, the Etsy app (for example) could surface directly within ChatGPT, showing you curated items, reviews, and prices. You could add an item to your basket, check out, and pay all without ever leaving the conversation.
The app arrives at the moment of intent, not at the end of a search funnel.
That’s the serendipity OpenAI is selling to brands: meet your buyer right where they’re thinking, deciding, or dreaming. And it’s why this is a big deal. It’s the creation of a new surface area for digital engagement. One that lives entirely inside the user’s conversational flow.
Now, it’s true that OpenAI has tested similar ideas before. Custom GPTs, Connectors, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Each of those moved the needle a little, but they were largely technical enablers.
The App SDK goes a step further. It gives developers the ability to design visual, interactive, brand-safe experiences, complete with buttons, pop-overs, even full-screen modes, that live natively inside ChatGPT.
This matters because it bridges the gap between talking to an AI and interacting with a brand. Custom GPTs were like niche workspaces. Connectors were pipes to data sources.
Apps are interfaces.
And for the first time, they let brands own a piece of that interface. Not as text in a chat window, but as a presence. A personality. A visual identity.
OpenAI has effectively built the world’s most sophisticated personalisation engine, and it’s inviting developers to plug straight in.
It’s worth remembering that ChatGPT already has a form of persistent memory. It can retain facts about you - what you like, how you work, what you’ve asked for before - and use that context in future conversations.
Combine that with the App SDK and OpenAI’s new Agentic Commerce Protocol(ACP), and the implications are enormous.
Imagine this: ChatGPT remembers that you prefer eco-friendly shampoo because of an allergy. You mention needing a new bottle. The system offers to open the Etsy or Boots app, already filtered to show hypoallergenic options. You pick one, check out, and pay.
Well, you don't need to imagine that, or wait for it. That is exactly what you can do today!
Every brand on the planet has dreamed of this level of contextual engagement, where personalisation is not a creepy side effect of tracking, but a natural byproduct of relationship.
OpenAI has effectively built the world’s most sophisticated personalisation engine, and it’s inviting developers to plug straight in.
So far, most examples have been consumer-focused: shopping, travel, music, design. But just as mobile apps evolved from games and retail into serious enterprise tools, we can expect the same here.
Imagine HR, IT, or finance apps living inside ChatGPT, connected to your organisation’s data via MCP. An employee asks, “How many days’ leave do I have left?” and the internal HR app appears right there, pre-authenticated, showing their balance.
Or think of field engineers querying parts databases, or customer service teams resolving tickets through a single conversational hub.
When the iPhone launched, it wasn’t just the App Store that changed the world — it was the fact that businesses started building their own apps. ChatGPT’s App SDK is the same kind of catalyst.
Soon, every organisation will have to decide not just what it does in ChatGPT, but how it shows up there.
Of course, that raises a big question: if OpenAI owns the interface, what happens to your data, your customers, your brand?
It’s tempting to see this as a threat or another walled garden. But the more strategic view is to see it as a shared surface.
Start by asking a simple question: “What’s the context in which my users might talk to ChatGPT about something I could help them with?”
ChatGPT is becoming the operating system for intent. Your job is to make sure that when your customers express intent in your domain, your app is the one that responds.
That doesn’t mean surrendering your data. It means integrating it intelligently so that every conversational signal you capture feeds back into your own systems, your own personalisation models, and your own value loops.
OpenAI might provide the stage. But the performance, and the the brand experience, is still yours to deliver.
If this all sounds oddly familiar, it should.
Fifteen years ago, executives sat in meeting rooms debating whether they needed a mobile app. Many decided they didn’t. Some said, “Our website works fine.” Others built apps because their competitors did, and then abandoned them when they didn’t immediately drive sales.
We called them zombie apps. And yet today, no major retailer would dream of existing without a mobile app. The debate is over. The app channel is now table stakes.
The same conversation is about to happen again, just faster, louder, and with higher stakes. Because this time, the audience is already 800 million strong.
If you’re a brand leader, product owner, or CTO, this is the time to experiment.
Start by asking a simple question: “What’s the context in which my users might talk to ChatGPT about something I could help them with?”
Then build from there. The goal isn’t to port your website or app into ChatGPT, it’s to design for conversational flow. OpenAI’s early design guidelines are clear on this: ChatGPT apps should enhance conversation, not interrupt it.
So think small. Think functional. Think about the moment of use.
If you’re a travel brand, maybe it’s surfacing offers the instant someone asks for inspiration. If you’re a retailer, maybe it’s letting customers check stock or place an order mid-chat. If you’re an enterprise, maybe it’s enabling employees to interact with internal systems through natural language.
Whatever your domain, the principle is the same: meet your users in the moment. Not before. Not after.
ChatGPT’s App Store won’t be fully live in the UK until early 2026, due to regulatory lag. But the SDK is already here, and the time to start learning is now. Because this isn’t just about AI. It’s about distribution.
Every time a new interface emerges, the organisations that master it early reshape the landscape for everyone else. The web created Google. Mobile created Uber, Instagram, and Airbnb. Conversational AI will create the next generation of companies and the next wave of expectations.
And those expectations won’t stay confined to consumer tech. They’ll bleed into the workplace, into customer service, into every digital interaction we have.
When people experience intuitive, conversational commerce in ChatGPT, they’ll expect the same from their bank, their employer, their doctor, and their government.
Fifteen years ago, we watched the App Store ignite a global movement. Thousands of startups were born overnight. Entire industries were rewritten.
Now, as we stand at the edge of this new platform era, it feels like that all over again. The names are different but the energy is the same. A new interface to the internet has opened. The question is who will move first.
This time, the audience isn’t 1.4 million early adopters. It’s 800 million people already talking to the machine.
And when the conversation turns toward your brand, you’ll want to be there to answer.
This article was originally written and published on LinkedIn by Kevin Smith, CTO and founder of Dootrix.