Article · 2026-07-10 · 6 moments

OpenAI's Plans For Its New ChatGPT Superapp

OpenAI's Codex and ChatGPT app lead Andrew Ambrosino talks to Big Technology about the product and its roadmap. ✦ AI generated

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GUEST Andrew Ambrosino

Claim

Even though Anthropic beat OpenAI to this bundled-agent product vision with Claude Code and Cowork, OpenAI believes it can now execute better having watched how the approach should work.

Asked about competing with Anthropic, which already shipped a similar bundled vision via Claude Code and Cowork, Ambrosino argues that moving second lets OpenAI execute with the benefit of hindsight.

transcript

Andrew Ambrosino: Anthropic arrived at this vision earlier, with products like Claude Code and Cowork bundled into the Claude app. Asked how OpenAI will compete, Ambrosino replied: “Going first has its weaknesses sometimes,” adding: “We have seen how this stuff should work, and now we can go execute on it.”

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Fact

OpenAI chose not to heavily leverage its trove of user chat history and memory in the new app unless a user explicitly asks it to draw on that memory.

Despite having years of user chat logs that could inform agentic actions, OpenAI decided, after internal debate, not to rely heavily on that memory unless the user proactively invokes it.

transcript

Andrew Ambrosino: But, after some internal debate, OpenAI won’t rely heavily on what it knows about you for this new experience. However, if you proactively ask it to rely on what it knows about you, Ambrosino said, it will then tap into its memory.

Claim◆

OpenAI is deliberately designing ChatGPT Work to avoid the excessive refusals that hobble many general knowledge-work AI agents, while still requiring permission checks.

Ambrosino says OpenAI wants ChatGPT Work to act more like coding agents, which don't needlessly refuse tasks, rather than the overly cautious behavior common in many knowledge-work AI tools.

transcript

Andrew Ambrosino: OpenAI is trying to free its ChatGPT Work product from such constraints, while still including permission requests to make sure it doesn’t go rogue. “A lot of these general knowledge work modes nerf things that coding can just do,” said Ambrosino. “That’s something we’re trying to avoid here.”

Example

People are already using the new ChatGPT app for a wide range of real work, from video editing to production-grade coding to building launch-tracking sites.

Ambrosino lists concrete early use cases—video editing, Word docs, spreadsheets, slide decks, production coding, and even building the site used to track the product's own launch.

transcript

Andrew Ambrosino: We have people editing videos on it,” Ambrosino said. “People creating Word docs, spreadsheets, slide decks, people writing production-grade code for post-training stacks, we have people here using this app to create sites to track launches, which we did for this launch.

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Mechanism

The toggle between Codex and ChatGPT Work changes the surrounding experience but not the underlying capability of the product.

Ambrosino explains that switching between the code-intensive Codex mode and the less-technical ChatGPT Work mode alters the interface and experience, not what the underlying system can actually do.

transcript

Andrew Ambrosino: There’s a toggle between the more code-intensive version of the app, which is OpenAI’s Codex product, and its less-technical version, ChatGPT Work. Code is foundational to both experiences, Ambrosino told me, but the Codex version is more useful for digging into the code itself. “The toggle does not affect what this product can do,” he said.

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Claim◆

This new ChatGPT app is the beginning of a true 'superapp' that can do anything you can do on a computer.

Ambrosino frames OpenAI's newly launched unified app—combining ChatGPT, coding, and browsing—as just the first step toward a full computer-replacing superapp.

transcript

Andrew Ambrosino: This is the start of the superapp,” Ambrosino told me. “Anything that you can do on a computer, you can now do with this app.” Unlike standard ChatGPT, which can answer queries and create images for you, the new ChatGPT can take over your computer and browser and get things done for you.

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Highlight slides

The Start of the Superapp✦ from: This new ChatGPT app is the beginning of a true 'superapp' that can do anything you can do on a computer.ChatGPT Work: Avoiding Unnecessary Refusals✦ from: OpenAI is deliberately designing ChatGPT Work to avoid the excessive refusals that hobble many general knowledge-work AI agents, while still requiring permission checks.Beyond Standard ChatGPT✦ from: This new ChatGPT app is the beginning of a true 'superapp' that can do anything you can do on a computer.Balancing Freedom with Safety✦ from: OpenAI is deliberately designing ChatGPT Work to avoid the excessive refusals that hobble many general knowledge-work AI agents, while still requiring permission checks.

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