ChatGPT is trying to be more than just a place to ask questions. The company that created it hopes to turn the chatbot into something that could rival the amount of time people spend on their iPhones, said Sam Altman.
This fall, OpenAI introduced a new feature that enables ChatGPT’s 800 million-plus users to do things such as order groceries on Instacart, create music playlists on Spotify, or look up hiking trails on AllTrails. Rather than toggling between apps, people on a phone can now accomplish these activities by typing in the chatbot.
We might be witnessing the start of a significant shift in how people use technology. Instead of tapping through multiple apps, users could ask an AI assistant to handle tasks. This could be a threat to Apple, which has built its business on its walled-garden app store.
But — and Apple likely doesn’t have too much to fear just yet. As The Wall Street Journal reported, OpenAI’s app experiment is a lot like ChatGPT’s early days: sometimes impressive and — quite frequently — quite broken. Instacart was solid, but for the most part, other apps could only answer basic questions. Failed commands and other acts of ‘f*ck them in the eye’ were standard.
Sam Altman says he’s really competing against Apple, not Google. In a December interview with reporters, Sam Altman, OpenAI’s leader, Sam Altman watched people spend too much time comparing ChatGPT to Google’s Gemini chatbot. He named Apple his real rival, and the company’s intentions support that assertion.
ChatGPT is slowly congealing into something that looks like an operating system. OpenAI is also collaborating with Jony Ive, the former Apple designer, to create a line of devices. Sam Altman said he hopes one of them will one day replace the iPhone.
The person who controls how people access their favorite online services basically owns a prime tract of digital real estate, said Gil Luria, an analyst at D.A. Davidson who covers tech companies. Today, that would be Apple, and the company levies significant fees on developers for access to it. The fact that more of us now begin our internet habits by chatting with a chatbot means OpenAI is winning, says Luria.
The company releases its new products explicitly early so that users and developers have ample time to learn how they work, says an OpenAI spokesperson. OpenAI, she pointed out, is not waiting for everything to be perfect. The company instead airs quick fixes through frequent updates.
The Journal’s tests showed that ordering an Uber through ChatGPT was more time-consuming than opening the iPhone app alone. When told to “use the Uber app,” ChatGPT said it “can’t directly access the Uber app.” Users need to know they should start their request with “@uber” and phrase their question or comment just right.
A ChatGPT version offered by Uber was described as a test project by an Uber spokesman, who added that the company is experimenting with various methods to determine what works best for customers.
And when The Journal attempted to use ChatGPT to make a reservation on OpenTable, it returned error messages. Making a reservation on OpenTable’s own website was easy and took only a few moments.
And The Journal also used ChatGPT to search Tripadvisor for an affordable ski trip. The maps lasted for half a minute before error messages took their place. “Tripadvisor is being a little useless,” ChatGPT conceded, and then the answer was generated from general web search results.
Both OpenTable and TripAdvisor representatives said the trick to getting their apps to work correctly is understanding what they can do and asking the chatbot appropriately.
But the whole promise of connecting a chatbot to an app is that it should make things easier, or perhaps let AI take over entirely. It’s harder to reduce the number of steps.
One of these apps works as intended, and there’s a reason for that.
Not too many other bad experiences on ChatGPT, but Instacart was one of the best. In one test, ChatGPT compiled a week’s worth of vegetarian family meals and then accurately filled a Costco shopping cart with all the ingredients. A checkout button directly takes the user to their account on Instacart’s website, where they can enter purchase and delivery information.
Anirban Kundu, Instacart’s head of technology, recalled in an interview that OpenAI’s initial plan wouldn’t have flown. The AI company had hoped that Instacart would provide inventory information and let ChatGPT generate grocery orders on its own. But prices and availability for fresh produce can change by the hour, so Instacart wanted the chatbot to call home — check its servers for live information.
When Simo joined OpenAI, her new employer agreed to what her old one had sought, Kundu said. The Instacart team worked from OpenAI’s office in a room and a messaging channel with their OpenAI colleagues over the span of three months as they went through several iterations of the connection, Kundu said.
Apple should worry about more partnerships like the one with Instacart. For now, opening a regular iPhone app is the easier option, though.
