The ultimate guide to Apps in ChatGPT

Just when you thought you had a handle on ChatGPT, OpenAI went and announced another big update: Apps in ChatGPT. The idea is to turn the chatbot from a simple back-and-forth tool into a full-blown interactive space, almost like a new kind of operating system where you can chat directly with your favorite services. It’s a huge step, moving beyond the old plugins and into a more integrated world.

If you work in tech, especially in customer support or IT, this probably brings a few questions to mind. What can these apps really do? Are they going to change how we use AI at work? And, the big one: are they actually useful for specialized tasks like automating customer service?

In this guide, we’ll walk through what Apps in ChatGPT are, what they can do right now, and where they still come up short for professional use.

What are Apps in ChatGPT?

At its heart, Apps in ChatGPT is a feature that lets other companies build interactive tools that run right inside a ChatGPT conversation. So, instead of just getting a wall of text as an answer, you can now pull up an app to get something done, whether that’s looking at a map, designing a graphic, or making a playlist, all without switching tabs.

OpenAI is calling this a "new generation of apps you can chat with," and the main goal seems to be making our interactions with AI feel more natural and useful. For instance, if you’re talking about planning a trip, ChatGPT might just pop up the Expedia app to help you look at flights.

How do Apps in ChatGPT work?

You can get an app to show up in a couple of ways:

1. Ask for it directly: You can start your prompt with the app’s name. Something like, "Spotify, make me a focus playlist with some instrumental electronic music."

2. Let ChatGPT suggest it: The AI is smart enough to suggest an app when it seems relevant. If you’re chatting about buying a house, it might bring up the Zillow app to help you browse listings.

This is all built on something called the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which is an open-source framework that lets developers connect their services and even design custom little interfaces that appear in the chat. It’s a real upgrade from the old plugins, making the whole experience feel much more polished.

Apps in ChatGPT: From plugins to a real app store

This isn’t OpenAI’s first rodeo with an app ecosystem. The GPT Store was a step in this direction, but it was mostly filled with custom GPTs that were cool but often pretty limited. The new Apps in ChatGPT feel more like a proper platform, especially with big names like Spotify, Canva, and Expedia joining in right from the start. It’s pretty clear they want ChatGPT to become a central hub for all sorts of digital tasks, kind of like your phone’s home screen.

What you can do with Apps in ChatGPT today

The first batch of apps gives us a good peek at what this ecosystem could become. These apps mix conversational AI with user interfaces, which makes for a much more dynamic and genuinely helpful chat.

Examples from launch partners

Let’s look at what you can actually do with a few of the apps available now:

• Canva: Got an idea for a presentation but hate starting from a blank slide? You can ask Canva to turn a simple outline into a full deck, a social media post, or a poster. You could type, "Canva, create a poster for my dog-walking business, ‘Pawsitive Strides’," and it would spit out a few design options right there in the chat.

A screenshot showing how Canva, one of the popular Apps in ChatGPT, can generate social media graphics from a simple text prompt.

• Zillow: If you’re hunting for a house, you can ask Zillow to find homes in a specific neighborhood with certain features (say, three bedrooms and under $500k). It’ll show you an interactive map you can play around with and ask questions about, all within ChatGPT.

• Spotify: You can just tell Spotify what kind of mood you’re in or what artist you want to hear, and it will build a playlist for you. It’s a lot more intuitive than clicking through menus in the actual Spotify app.

Other partners at launch include Booking.com, Coursera, and Figma, and it sounds like Uber and DoorDash are on their way.

The developer side: The new Apps SDK

For anyone who builds software, OpenAI has put out a preview of their new Apps SDK. This is the toolkit for creating, testing, and eventually publishing your own Apps in ChatGPT. The potential audience is massive: over 800 million weekly active users. Developers get to control their app’s logic and interface. Later this year, OpenAI says it will open up submissions for an official app directory and share how monetization will work, including an "instant checkout" feature.

The business challenge: Are Apps in ChatGPT ready for customer support?

While Apps in ChatGPT are a cool new toy for personal use, they run into some pretty big roadblocks in a business setting like customer support. The current setup is great for simple, one-off tasks, but it’s not built for the kind of complex, multi-step work that support teams handle all day long.

Where Apps in ChatGPT fall short for specialized workflows

The app ecosystem is designed for single commands, not for managing complex processes from start to finish. Here’s why that’s a problem for a support team:

• Shallow integrations: You can call up an app, but you can’t build a detailed workflow that connects to your internal tools in a smart way. For example, an App in ChatGPT can’t take a new support ticket, figure out what it’s about, tag it, send it to the right person, and look up the customer’s order in your Shopify store all in one smooth motion.

• No real control: The automation is pretty rigid. You can’t set specific rules for when the AI should handle something and when it should pass it to a human. A support manager needs to be able to say, "Handle all questions about our return policy, but if anyone mentions a ‘billing issue,’ escalate it immediately."

• One-size-fits-all answers: These apps are built for everyone, which means they’re not built for your business. They can’t learn from your team’s past conversations, macros, and internal documents to reply in your company’s unique voice with information that’s actually relevant.

That’s a pretty big gap, and it’s where tools built specifically for support teams, like eesel AI, come into play. Instead of a generic app, eesel AI gives you a fully customizable workflow engine made for support. You get complete control to pick and choose which tickets to automate, create custom AI personalities, and connect all your knowledge sources, from old Zendesk tickets to your internal Confluence pages. You can get it up and running in minutes without needing a developer, which just isn’t happening with a general-purpose app.

Data privacy and control

For any business, keeping data safe is a top priority. While OpenAI says developers need clear privacy policies, using a third-party app in ChatGPT means your company’s data (and your customers’) is passing through multiple systems. This leaves some big questions about where the data is stored, who can access it, and how conversation histories are managed.

In contrast, a solution like eesel AI is built with business security in mind. Your data is never used to train general AI models, you can keep your data in the EU if needed, and you have much more precise control over what information the AI can see.

ChatGPT pricing: Who gets to use Apps in ChatGPT?

Apps in ChatGPT are available to anyone with a ChatGPT account, whether you’re on a Free, Plus, Pro, Business, or Enterprise plan (though they’re not in the EU just yet). Making them widely available is a great way to get people using them, but for businesses, the real power comes with the features in the paid plans.

Here’s a quick look at ChatGPT’s pricing plans, which you’ll need to get different levels of performance and access the models that make these apps tick.

Plan	Price (per month)	Key Features for App Usage
Free	$0	Limited access to GPT-5, standard features, can use apps.
Plus	$20	Higher limits, access to more powerful models, can create GPTs and use apps.
Pro	$200	Highest limits, early access to new features like advanced app capabilities.
Business	$25 / user (billed annually)	Secure workspace, connectors to internal knowledge, admin controls.
Enterprise	Contact Sales	Enterprise-grade security, expanded context window, priority support.

Even though you can use apps on the free plan, the speed and quality of the AI model behind them can make a big difference. Most businesses will probably need a Business or Enterprise plan to get the performance and security they need.

The verdict on Apps in ChatGPT: Great for consumers, not for business automation

There’s no getting around it: Apps in ChatGPT are a big leap forward for conversational AI. They’re making ChatGPT a more useful, interactive hub for everyday tasks. Being able to whip up a presentation, find a house, or create a playlist with a single sentence is incredibly cool and points to a future where we just talk to our software.

This video provides a great overview of how you can start using Apps in ChatGPT today.

But for businesses trying to automate important work like customer support, it’s just not the right tool for the job. The ecosystem doesn’t offer the control, deep integrations, or specialized workflows needed to handle complex support issues well. It’s a fantastic horizontal platform, but it can’t match the depth of a tool built for a specific purpose.

Why your support team deserves more than generic Apps in ChatGPT

If you’re serious about using AI to improve your customer support, you need a tool that’s actually built for it. eesel AI connects directly with your helpdesk and knowledge bases to give you an AI agent that actually understands your business.

With features like our simulation mode, you can test your setup on old tickets and see your potential resolution rate before you even turn it on. You can get started in minutes, not months, and have total say over what gets automated.

See how eesel AI can transform your customer support today.