OpenAI might turn ChatGPT into a full-fledged social app with new DM feature: Here’s what we kow

OpenAI’s ambitions of turning ChatGPT into an ‘everything app’ of sorts have become more and more clear in the last few days. Just last month, OpenAI launched its Sora 2 video generation model, which was followed by a TikTok-like app for AI videos by the same name.

​Early this month, OpenAI launched its ‘Apps SDK,’ which allows developers to create specialized AI apps that run within ChatGPT, thus taking competition directly to Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store.

​Meanwhile, OpenAI already has a ChatGPT Agent that can take autonomous actions on behalf of users, like navigating websites, interacting with interfaces, and extracting information.

​The San Francisco-based AI startup could now be working on bringing direct messages to ChatGPT, allowing users to interact with each other similarly to how they do on social media platforms.

​The feature was spotted by Tibor Blaho, Lead Engineer at AIPRM.com — a browser extension that provides users with curated prompt templates for large language models (LLMs).

​Blaho states that the ChatGPT DM feature was found on the beta version of the app for Android and was codenamed “Calpico” and “Calpico Rooms.” It is said to be similar to the DM feature that OpenAI already has on the Sora app for iPhone.

​In another post on X, Blaho stated that users would be able to use ChatGPT together to “brainstorm ideas, plan together, ask, search, create images, and chat together.” Meanwhile, no one in the conversation may have access to the personal ChatGPT memory of another user in order to ensure privacy.

​Meanwhile, there could also be an option for invite links to allow other users to join group chats. However, we have no clarity yet on if the new feature will entail end-to-end encryption for chats as they are protected on WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal.

​Privacy could be a big factor in this endeavor going forward, as OpenAI’s previous attempts at broadening the horizon of ChatGPT have shown. In August this year, OpenAI had added a new share feature on the app, which allowed users to make their chats discoverable on search engines.

​However, the feature was implemented in a way that many users inadvertently ended up making their private chats discoverable on Google Search. OpenAI had to later work with search engines to remove the indexed chats of users while rolling back the feature.