At an OpenAI Dev Days keynote today, CEO Sam Altman announced that the company is launching an SDK preview that will allow developers the ability "to build real apps inside of ChatGPT." Altman said that, starting today, the new SDK will give developers "full stack" control over app data, action triggers, and even interactive user interfaces for apps that can appear inline as part of an existing ChatGPT conversation window.
The SDK is built on the open source Model Context Protocol (MCP), Altman said. That means developers that already use MCP only need to add an HTML resource to enable ChatGPT integration, he added.
The new integration means a ChatGPT user can directly ask Figma to turn a sketch into a diagram, for instance, and get results integrated into their ChatGPT conversation. It also means that ChatGPT can suggest apps that might be suited to a more general query, like recommending and creating a Spotify playlist when someone asks for song suggestions.
In a live onstage demo, OpenAI software engineer Alexi Christakis showed how the new API can "expose context back to ChatGPT from your app," a process he likened to ChatGPT "talking to apps." For instance, the LLM can expand in real time on what's being said in an embedded Coursera video. "I don't need to explain what I'm seeing in the video, ChatGPT sees it right away," Christakis said on stage.
Other onstage demos showed off ChatGPT using Canva to generate poster ideas in the background while the user consulted an inline Zillow map for information. Even when the Zillow window was expanded to full screen, the user could ask ChatGPT for additional context via an overlaid chat window.
While Altman mentioned an "agentic commerce protocol" that will allow app users to enjoy "instant checkout" from within ChatGPT, he later clarified that details on monetization will only be available "soon."
In addition to the apps mentioned above, others like Expedia and Booking.com will be available in ChatGPT starting today. Apps from other launch partners including Peloton, Target, Uber, and Doordash will be available inside ChatGPT "in the weeks ahead."
Other developers can start building with the SDK today before submitting them to OpenAI for review and publication within ChatGPT "later this year." Altman said that apps that meet a certain set of "developer guidelines" will be listed in a comprehensive directory, while those meeting "higher standards for design and functionality will be featured more prominently."
AgentKit and API updates
Elsewhere in the keynote, Altman announced AgentKit, a new tool designed to let OpenAI users create specialized interactive chatbots using a simplified building block GUI interface. The new software includes integrated tools for measuring performance and testing workflows from within the ChatKit interface.
In a live demo, OpenAI platform experience specialist Christina Huang gave herself an eight-minute deadline to use AgentKit to create a live, customized question-answering "Ask Froge" chatbot for the Dev Day website. While that demo was done with time to spare, Huang did make use of a lot of pre-built "widgets" and documents full of prepopulated information about the event to streamline the chatbot's creation.
The keynote also announced minor updates for OpenAI's codex coding agent, including integration with Slack and a new SDK to allow for easier integration into existing coding workflows. Altman also announced some recent models would be newly available to users via API, including Sora 2, GPT5-Pro, and a new smaller, cheaper version of the company's real-time audio interface.
OpenAI ramps up developer push with more powerful models in its API