OpenAI: Piloting a Super App and Agentic Commerce

Ever since the surge of generative AI – triggered largely by the arrival of OpenAI's ChatGPT – people have flocked to countless platforms to sort domain-specific tasks – ranging from technical coding and agentic workflows to routine writing.

This fragmented landscape of AI tools could soon become a unified Pangea with OpenAI’s upcoming desktop super app.

In this major transformation of its product line up, the AI giant plans to consolidate its flagship tools – ChatGPT, Codex and the Atlas web browser – under one application to simplify user experience and boost focus.

This development comes as OpenAI grapples with increasing competition from rivals such as Anthropic, with Claude recently surpassing OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the most downloaded app in the Appstore charts. 

At the same time the company is also investing in new ways to make ChatGPT more useful in everyday tasks like product discovery. 

Why is a super app the way forward?

OpenAI executives acknowledge that having multiple standalone applications has created challenges for both users and engineers. 

In an internal note, Fidji Simo, Chief of Applications at OpenAI, says the company had “realised we were spreading our efforts across too many apps and stacks and that we need to simplify our efforts.” 

As reported by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), she adds that the existing fragmentation “has been slowing us down and making it harder to hit the quality bar we want.”

This admission highlights a broader strategic reset within the company. 

By unifying its AI tools, OpenAI aims to improve quality, reduce duplication of effort and provide a more cohesive experience for users who currently juggle multiple apps for different tasks.

The super app will feature increased agentic capacity in Codex as OpenAI aims to improve AI agent capability in the coding platform before the merge. 

“This is an opportunity to combine the strongest AI consumer app and brand with the strongest agentic app and really leverage our consumer scale to give agentic capabilities to everyone,” Fidji says.

WSJ notes Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s President, will assist Fidji in managing the product overhaul and related organisational changes as they bring the unified application to market.

Enhancing product discovery with AI-native commerce

Alongside the super app initiative, OpenAI has also expanded ChatGPT’s capabilities around product discovery that can totally revamp AI-native commerce. 

The company recently published details of more visually immersive shopping experiences powered by what it calls the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP).

When the user is not sure of what they need to buy, what usually results is a lot of wasted time jumping between tabs trying to figure out what exactly it is they need. 

This is where product discovery is most useful, as the updated ChatGPT experience lets people describe what they are looking for, browse product options visually and compare prices and features side by side within the chat interface itself. 

Shopping now feels more conversational for users while offering merchants higher intent shoppers who are closer to making a purchase.

This update comes after the slow take off of ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout feature, where users could directly buy products within the chat.

As most users preferred completing purchases on familiar retailer websites, Instant Checkout did not bring in much success. But the underlying ACP now powers product discovery. 

“Over time, ACP will serve as a foundation for broader AI-native commerce experiences, including personalisation, local availability and ETAs,” OpenAI notes. 

“Already, leading retailers including Target, Sephora, Nordstrom, Lowe’s, Best Buy, The Home Depot and Wayfair have integrated into ACP for discovery.”

Joining this trend is Walmart, which is introducing an in-ChatGPT app experience, which leads users from discovery in ChatGPT into a “tailored Walmart environment that supports account linking, loyalty and Walmart payments”.

“By partnering closely with OpenAI, we’ve been able to learn together as we move quickly to shape what agentic commerce can become,” says Daniel Danker, EVP, AI Acceleration, Product and Design at Walmart.

“Today’s launch brings Walmart directly into the ChatGPT experience, combining leading conversational AI with the decades of retail expertise we’ve built serving customers.”

What it means for users 

Product discovery in ChatGPT offers users a conversational shopping experience while the super app promises a more streamlined workflow.

Instead of bouncing between separate services, people will have a central hub for AI driven tasks. 

This could accelerate productivity in areas such as writing, research, coding and creative problem solving.

Developers and enterprise customers may also benefit from a more integrated environment that supports long running workflows and advanced agent based automation. 

OpenAI’s decision to pursue a desktop super app reflects a significant strategic shift away from a fragmented product portfolio towards a unified platform. 

By bringing together its most powerful tools in one place the company aims to improve user experience and sharpen its competitive edge in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.