ChatGPT users can now invoke GPTs directly in chats

OpenAI is pushing adoption of GPTs, third-party apps powered by its AI models, by enabling ChatGPT users to invoke them in any chat.

Starting today, paid users of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s AI chatbot front end, can bring GPTs into a conversation by typing “@” and selecting a GPT from the list. The chosen GPT will have an understanding of the full conversation, and different GPTs can be “tagged in” for different use cases and needs — jumping into the conversation with context of things that were said previously.

“This allows you to add relevant GPTs with the full context of the conversation,” OpenAI said in a tweet.

The move to make GPTs more discoverable comes weeks after the launch of the GPT Store, a marketplace for GPTs accessible through the ChatGPT dashboard. Building GPTs doesn’t require coding experience, and GPTs can be as simple or complex as a developer wishes. A few available today include a trail recommender from AllTrails, a code tutor from Khan Academy and a content designer from Canva.

OpenAI plans to eventually introduce monetization for developers who wish to sell access to their GPTs. But the company might have to get traffic up first. According to data from Similarweb, the web analytics company, custom GPTs comprise only about 2.7% of ChatGPT’s worldwide web traffic so far — and custom GPT traffic has been declining month over month since November.

Moderation is proving to be another challenge. In the first week of its launch, the GPT Store was flooded with “romantic” chatbots apps, some of which were sexually suggestive — a clear violation of OpenAI’s terms. Developers also rushed to make political campaigning bots — like a chatbot that impersonated U.S. presidential candidate Dean Phillips — another obvious violation.

OpenAI, which claims to use a combination of human and automated review to flag GPTs, has since removed some of the offending apps. But if the volume of GPTs grows as the company’s clearly hoping, one imagines that the problem is only going to become more acute.