OpenAI’s Custom ChatGPT Store to Open Soon, Making AI More Approachable
Print/DownloadOpenAI plans to open its GPT Store this week, the artificial intelligence powerhouse told developers in recent days, marking a new chapter in the development of its ChatGPT chatbot technology.
Anyone who subscribes to OpenAI’s $20-per-month ChatGPT Plus subscription can create GPTs, even without programming expertise. Examples of GPTs available now include a fitness trainer, laundry buddy washing label decoder, music theory instructor, coloring book picture generator, haiku writer and the Pearl for Pets for vet advice. Under OpenAI’s plan, the GPT Store will make such tools easier to discover or locate.
ChatGPT is a chatbot based on the company’s GPT-3 and GPT-4 large language models. In November, OpenAI began letting developers use ChatGPT to create their own “GPTs,” custom versions of ChatGPT tailored for a specific purpose and augmented with their own extra information.
OpenAI is planning to make these GPTs easier to find and use through its GPT Store, a parallel move to Apple’s App Store for iPhone apps. And like that and other app stores, the GPT Store will offer a way for GPT creators to profit from use of their GPTs.
If successful, the GPT Store would mark a new moment making AI technology more approachable, useful and profitable, cementing OpenAI’s leadership in the area as a company that consumers value.
The company has let people build their own GPTs but so far has only let them share GPTs through the cumbersome process of copying and pasting web addresses. That’s set to change now. “We want to let you know that we will launch the GPT Store next week,” OpenAI told developers on Jan. 4, according to several GPT creators. That’s a bit later than the original November launch date OpenAI planned, but the company has been through some drama with the firing and rehiring of Chief Executive Sam Altman.
An OpenAI illustration of an app store for “GPTs,” its term for custom AI tools you now can develop for your own needs and customized with your own data.
OpenAIOpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
App store operators like Apple and Google typically carve off a portion of app store revenue for themselves, often 30%. Just what OpenAI will do remains to be seen, but the company does plan to make GPTs into a new business for itself and for GPT authors.
“Revenue sharing is important,” Altman said at a press conference at the November announcement of GPTs. “We’re going to pay people who build the most useful GPTs a portion of our revenue.”
