OpenAI’s Nick Turley Wants ChatGPT to Operate Like an App Platform

OpenAI’s head of ChatGPT, Nick Turley, says the company is pushing ChatGPT beyond a chat product toward a platform that works more like an operating system filled with third-party apps. Hired in 2022 to commercialize OpenAI’s research, Turley has helped grow ChatGPT to 800 million weekly users and now argues that the next phase is adding clear app “affordances” so people can do more than type commands.

He draws inspiration from modern web browsers, which have become the place where most work happens, and hints that browsers remain “really interesting” for OpenAI. The company is also developing hardware with Jony Ive’s team, positioning a ChatGPT app platform as a hub inside a broader consumer ecosystem.

The new app model revives earlier efforts such as plugins and the GPT Store, but with apps embedded in the core experience and tied to transactions from partners like Expedia, DoorDash, and Uber—potentially giving OpenAI a share of revenue and developers access to ChatGPT’s vast audience.

Turley says some categories may host multiple apps; ChatGPT could show both or prioritize the one a user already prefers, and OpenAI is open to exploring paid placement so long as it does not harm the experience. Privacy is a central concern: OpenAI’s guidelines say apps should collect only the minimum data needed, with transparent disclosures from day one.

Turley adds that OpenAI is considering features such as partitioned memory to let people grant fine-grained access to specific conversations. He frames ChatGPT as the “delivery vehicle” for the company’s nonprofit mission to develop AI that benefits everyone, arguing the consumer product is how advanced systems will actually reach people.

While OpenAI will not build everything—music services or full education catalogs, for example—it wants developers to bring those experiences into ChatGPT and create new ones that only this platform makes possible. The goal is a family of connected products where account, identity, and personalization tie the pieces together, moving ChatGPT from a powerful command line into an everyday app platform.