OpenAI never wanted to create a chatbot.
As one of the first beta testers of OpenAI’s GPT-3 model, I can attest to the fact that the company was completely caught off guard by the runaway success of ChatGPT.
An email OpenAI sent me on November 28, 2022, just two days before ChatGPT hit the market and sparked a multi-year, trillion-dollar AI fight that would drag out the economy, didn’t even mention the new interface.
Rather, he boasted about the company’s then-revolutionary “DaVinci” model and how it could “deliver clearer, richer, more engaging content” and allow developers to “take on tasks that previously would have been too difficult to achieve.”
From the clipped tone of the email, it was clear that OpenAI had bigger ambitions than creating a text-based tool to help you argue with your insurance company or write. KPop Demon Hunters fanfics.
As Nick Turley, OpenAI’s head of product, admitted this week, the company “got a little sidetracked” by ChatGPT.
Now OpenAI’s true ambitions are becoming clearer. In Turley’s words, OpenAI “never intended to create a chatbot.” Instead, the company always planned to “build a super assistant.” And that’s exactly what he’s doing now.
The ‘super app’
In the United States, our application landscape is very fragmented. Yes, if you want to know how fast bamboo grows or discover the chords to REM’s 1985 classic “Wendell Gee,” you can fire up the ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini app and ask the robots.
However, if you want to post on social media, you’ll likely turn to Instagram, TikTok, or (perhaps stealing from the chance of running into MechaHitler) X.
Do you need to carry out banking operations? Open the crappy app for your local bank branch with the 2012 UI and hope for the best. Buy something? There’s Amazon, Instacart and DoorDash for that. Do you want to secretly determine how much wealth your friends have accumulated? Zillow to the rescue!
In other parts of the world, apps are not like that at all. Many countries, especially in Asia, have super apps that integrate all of those features and more into a single tool, often controlled by a single, highly influential company.
In China, WeChat offers messaging and gaming, but also mobile payments, social networking, and mini-apps for things like hailing rides, paying bills, and even getting city services.
In many countries in Southwest Asia, Grab offers financial services, travel, food delivery, and much more. In the Middle East, Careem offers similar features. Africa, Latin America and many other geographies have similar super apps.
The United States does not. And for American technology companies, that’s a big problem.
Because apps are all-encompassing, their creators control incredible amounts of capital and power. Tencent, the company behind WeChat, had revenue of more than $90 billion and profits close to $30 billion in 2024 (largely driven by WeChat) and is growing rapidly.
This is an especially colossal sum in China, making Tencent one of the country’s most profitable companies, behind only a handful of largely state-controlled banks and conglomerates.
Here in the United States, Elon Musk had ambitions of turning X into a super app, but his politics and penchant for second-grade humor got in the way.
No one else has really taken up the challenge. Until now.
OpenAI eats everything
At its October 2025 “Developer Day,” OpenAI made it clear that it intends to create a super app and will spend a nearly unlimited amount of money to achieve it.
During the event, the company announced the ability to run applications directly within the ChatGPT interface. They are very similar to the “mini-apps” that have made WeChat so powerful. Initial partners include Spotify and Zillow, but the list will inevitably grow.
At the same time, the company has implemented multiple features that make it look less like a chatbot creator and more like a super app company.
Last week, OpenAI launched new features that allow the bot to spend your money for you, as well as a protocol to allow direct purchases from any merchant who opts in.
OpenAI’s Sora social network, where all content is gleefully fake, takes on TikTok and immediately jumped to the number one spot in Apple’s App Store. And earlier this year, OpenAI shared that it plans to launch a browser to rival the ubiquitous Google Chrome.
OpenAI seems to suddenly be everywhere, doing everything. That far-reaching ambition is the hallmark of a super app creator. And again, if all the signs weren’t clear enough, Turley essentially confirmed the company’s new direction with his “super assistant” comments.
So will it work?
If any company can create a super app, it’s OpenAI. With its huge success among consumers, the company has access to bottomless wells of capital. ChatGPT has 800 million weekly active users and that number continues to grow.
OpenAI is the first company in a generation to create a completely new way to interact with computers. Its smart chat interface lends itself to integration with other apps and services. My own experience using Instant Checkout confirms that purchasing things within the ChatGPT interface is really easy.
Still, the existing technological titans in the United States will not remain calm. Google is aggressively expanding its own Gemini app, and its Nano Banana system proves it can still capture the public’s attention. Meta already has his own Sora doppelgänger.
And although OpenAI is growing rapidly, its revenue is around $10 billion, a drop in the ocean compared to Google’s $350 billion, and still a fraction of the revenue of its rival Chinese super apps.
OpenAI would love to take charge of every aspect of your digital life. And maybe yes. But despite the hype, the company still has a long way to go.