On the heels of surging popularity for its conversational AI system ChatGPT, OpenAI has announced the launch of the GPT Store - an online marketplace for discovering and sharing customizable AI tools known as GPTs.
GPTs are custom versions of ChatGPT that users can build for specific use cases without coding, like summarizing text, analyzing data, or even generating images. Since OpenAI introduced GPTs at its Dev Day event in November last year, over 3 million custom apps have already been created.
The GPT Store gives ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Enterprise users a centralized platform to explore top trending GPTs across categories like programming, writing, education, lifestyle, and more. Users can also submit their own GPT creations to be featured.
As an incentive for builders, OpenAI plans to launch a GPT monetization program in Q1 2024. Initial payouts will reward US-based creators for driving engagement on their published apps.
For commercial teams, the GPT Store also unlocks more control over curating which apps employees can access. OpenAI assures that as with all usage on ChatGPT Team and Enterprise, it does not leverage customer data from GPT interactions for model training.
Overall, the GPT Store represents the latest push to cultivate an ecosystem of reusable AI tools on top of foundational models like ChatGPT. By incentivizing creators and facilitating discovery of helpful apps, OpenAI hopes to seed further innovation and productivity gains across industries.
Of course, OpenAI must also establish guardrails and review mechanisms to ensure quality and safety as the scale of GPT sharing grows. But striking the right balance can set the stage for exponential gains in how groups customize AI to their workflows.
The GPT Store's eventual success will depend on the depth of valuable apps submitted by builders. But for now, unlocking widespread access and incentivization marks a pivotal early step toward mainstream realization of AI's promise.