In July 2008, Apple opened the App Store to third-party developers. Within months, every business was asking the same question: “What should our iPhone app be?” The platform shift happened faster than anyone predicted, creating entirely new ways for companies to reach customers.

We’re witnessing another platform shift of equal magnitude. OpenAI’s announcement of Apps in ChatGPT signals the start of websites playing a supporting role as AI-native interfaces become the first stop for customer interaction. ChatGPT is becoming the new front door of the internet, and the companies that understand this shift first will capture disproportionate advantage in what we’re calling the agentic era.

The question now is how quickly your brand can move before competitors establish dominance in this new landscape where the real customer relationships happen through AI-mediated conversations rather than traditional web browsing.

Apps in ChatGPT represents OpenAI’s Apps SDK that allows brands to build custom components—branded mini-applications—inside ChatGPT conversations. Its arrival is comparable to the moments when brands realized search engines and app stores were new gateways to their audience. Now, the leap is even bigger: brands deliver context-aware experiences natively inside AI—the instant a customer needs them.

OpenAI’s Apps in ChatGPT launch partners illustrate the concept perfectly. When someone asks ChatGPT about learning machine learning, Coursera’s interactive educational module appears natively in the conversation, allowing users to watch videos, complete exercises, and get personalized explanations without ever leaving ChatGPT. When users need creative assets, Canva materializes to generate posters, presentations, or marketing materials directly within the conversation. When planning a move or researching real estate, Zillow’s interactive maps and property listings appear seamlessly in the chat.

But these individual components are just the beginning. The real transformation happens when multiple brand experiences connect fluidly within ChatGPT conversations. ChatGPT becomes the orchestrated web, pulling in component after component to create complete customer journeys that replace traditional website navigation entirely. The UI gets handled by ChatGPT. The container becomes the new front door. Brands design the apps, modules, and experiences that get served up exactly when customers need them.

Consider someone starting a business. The conversation might begin with brainstorming, then invoke Canva to create marketing materials, followed by Zillow to find office space, then connect to financial planning tools—all within one continuous dialogue. Each brand contributes specialized functionality while ChatGPT orchestrates the complete experience.

Apps inside ChatGPT is OpenAI’s Apps SDK that enables brands to create custom, interactive applications that appear natively within ChatGPT conversations. Built on MCP (Model Context Protocol), the SDK provides full control over back-end logic and front-end UI, allowing brands to deliver their services, products, and expertise directly within the AI interface where customers are already engaged.

The technology represents a fundamental shift in how brands interface with customers. Instead of competing for attention to drive traffic to your digital properties, Apps in ChatGPT allows you to be present exactly when and where customers express relevant needs. Your brand becomes part of the customer’s natural workflow rather than a separate destination they must choose to visit.

Apps inside ChatGPT can be discovered in two ways: users can ask for specific apps by name (“Canva, make me a poster”), or ChatGPT can recommend relevant apps contextually during conversations. The apps support inline display, picture-in-picture, and full-screen layouts, with the ability to expose context back to ChatGPT so the AI always understands what users are interacting with.

Apps inside ChatGPT transforms your brand from a destination into a service that meets customers exactly where they are, when they need you. Your website becomes the structured data repository that feeds these AI-native experiences, but customers interact with your brand through conversational components rather than traditional web pages.

This represents the shift from the attention economy to the utility economy. Instead of competing for customer attention to drive them to your properties, you compete to be genuinely helpful within their existing workflows. Success comes from being the app ChatGPT chooses to serve when customers express relevant needs.

The competitive advantage compounds over time. Brands that master AI-native experiences deliver personalization and contextual relevance that static websites cannot match. Every conversation becomes an opportunity to learn, adapt, and provide increasingly relevant value within the customer’s natural decision-making process.

The Apps SDK is available in preview starting 10/6/25, with broader access rolling out in the coming months. The brands building during this preview period will have significant expertise advantages when general availability opens—they’ll understand conversation design, have optimized their data for AI consumption, and built relationships with customers through AI interfaces while competitors are still figuring out the basics.

The risk of waiting extends beyond missed opportunity. As customers become accustomed to AI-native brand experiences—getting immediate, personalized help without leaving their conversation—traditional web interfaces will feel increasingly cumbersome and outdated. Late entrants face higher customer acquisition costs and lower engagement rates because customer expectations will have evolved.

The Apps SDK enables brands to create interactive applications that leverage their unique data, products, and services within ChatGPT conversations. Apps can render anything that works on the web and can reach hundreds of millions of ChatGPT users.

• Product Discovery — Interactive catalogs that help customers find and customize products through natural language. Instead of browsing Nike’s website, users describe their running needs and interact with Nike’s product finder app that appears within their fitness conversation.

• Service Delivery — Apps that provide immediate value—calculators, diagnostic tools, personalized recommendations. A Home Depot project planning app appears when users discuss renovations, helping them calculate materials and costs without separate downloads or account creation.

• Transactional Experiences — Complete purchase flows embedded within conversations, supported by the new Agentic Commerce Protocol that offers instant checkout right inside ChatGPT. The entire shopping journey from product discovery through payment processing happens within the ChatGPT interface.

• Educational and Support Content — Interactive tutorials and guidance that adapt to user questions and learning pace. Coursera’s implementation shows how educational content can become contextual, with video lessons, interactive exercises, and real-time explanations based on what users are viewing.

Preparation requires both strategic thinking and technical readiness. Start by auditing your current customer touchpoints to identify high-value interactions that could be reimagined as conversational apps rather than web pages.

• Customer Journey Mapping — Identify your most common customer questions, decision points, and transaction flows. These become the foundation for AI-native apps. Ask what problems your customers really need solved and how conversational interfaces could deliver solutions more efficiently than current methods.

• Data Infrastructure Assessment — AI-native experiences require clean, accessible data that can be dynamically served through conversational interfaces. Your product databases, content management systems, and customer data need evaluation for AI compatibility. Websites become data repositories rather than customer destinations.

• Capability Development — Building conversational experiences requires different skills than traditional web development—conversation design, AI training data preparation, and dynamic content optimization. Most importantly, assign dedicated leadership to AI-native strategy rather than treating this as a side project.

Traditional digital strategy optimizes for attention capture and funnel conversion. AI-native strategy optimizes for utility delivery and relationship building within existing customer workflows. The fundamental shift moves from interruption-based marketing to embedded helpfulness.

The metrics that matter change completely. Instead of measuring page views, bounce rates, and traditional conversion funnels, success metrics include conversation completion rates, task resolution quality, and long-term customer value creation through repeated AI interactions. You’re building relationships rather than optimizing transactions.

Budget allocation shifts from acquisition-focused advertising toward experience development and data optimization. Rather than paying to interrupt customers with ads, you invest in being genuinely helpful within their natural decision-making processes. Competitive differentiation moves from brand perception to brand utility.

Designing for Apps in ChatGPT requires a fundamental shift from page-based thinking to app-based thinking. Instead of creating destinations for customers to visit, you’re creating modular experiences that can appear contextually within conversations.

• Start with Customer Intent — Map the specific problems your customers express through conversational queries. What questions do they ask AI that your brand is uniquely positioned to answer? These intent patterns become the triggers for when your Apps in ChatGPT components should appear.

• Design for Conversation Flow — Traditional web design optimizes for visual hierarchy and navigation paths. Apps in ChatGPT must integrate seamlessly into conversational contexts. Your brand interactions should feel like natural extensions of the customer’s dialogue with ChatGPT, not interruptions or diversions.

• Prioritize Functional Value — The apps that succeed will solve immediate customer problems rather than simply promote brand awareness. Focus on utility—calculators, configurators, booking tools, personalized recommendations—that provides genuine value within the conversation context.

• Structure Data for AI Consumption — Your product information, service details, and content must be structured in ways that AI can understand and serve dynamically. This often means reimagining how you organize and tag information compared to traditional website architecture.

• Plan for Progressive Engagement — Design apps that can handle both simple queries and complex interactions. A customer might start with a basic product question but progress to detailed configuration and purchase within the same conversational flow.

The most successful Apps in ChatGPT implementations will feel invisible to users—they’ll experience seamless, helpful interactions without being conscious of moving between different brand systems or leaving their conversation with ChatGPT.

AI-native experiences require new success frameworks that prioritize relationship building over transaction optimization. The key performance indicators should reflect the conversational, relationship-building nature of these interactions.

• Engagement Quality — Conversation length, question complexity, and user satisfaction with responses indicate how well your AI-native experience serves customer needs. Success means helping customers accomplish their goals efficiently, whether or not they result in immediate purchases.

• Task Completion Rates — Unlike web conversion funnels, AI-native success means resolving customer needs within the conversation. High completion rates indicate your apps provide genuine utility rather than just brand exposure.

• Relationship Progression — Track how customer interactions evolve over time—from simple queries to complex problem-solving. This indicates growing trust and utility, the foundation of long-term customer value in conversational commerce.

• Ecosystem Integration — Success includes how well your brand apps connect with other AI-native experiences, creating comprehensive solutions for customer needs rather than isolated brand interactions.

While every sector faces the shift toward AI-native customer experiences with Apps in ChatGPT, certain industries are positioned for immediate transformation due to how customers already use conversational interfaces for discovery and decision-making.

Travel and Hospitality — Travel planning happens naturally through conversation. Flight comparisons, hotel searches, activity recommendations, and booking processes can all become embedded components within travel planning discussions. OpenAI’s Apps in ChatGPT partnership with Expedia demonstrates how the entire customer journey—from inspiration to booking—can happen within ChatGPT rather than across multiple websites and apps.

Education and Training — Learning conversations are inherently interactive and personalized. Coursera’s implementation within ChatGPT shows how educational content can become contextual rather than destination-based. Students can watch course videos, ask questions about specific moments, and get personalized explanations—all within the same conversation. Professional training, skill assessments, and certification programs can embed directly into career development discussions.

Entertainment and Sports — Content discovery increasingly happens through AI conversations. Netflix could surface personalized viewing recommendations and even interactive previews when users discuss what to watch. Sports organizations could provide real-time statistics, fantasy league tools, and ticketing components when fans discuss games or teams. The entire entertainment experience becomes conversational rather than app-based.

Retail and E-commerce — The browsing model is already breaking down. Customers increasingly ask AI for “the best running shoes for flat feet under $150” rather than navigating category pages. Nike’s Training Club functionality can appear when users discuss fitness goals. Product configurators and recommendation engines become conversational rather than visual. The brands that structure their product data for AI integration will dominate these recommendation moments.

Financial Services — Banking conversations happen naturally through AI already. Financial planning components could appear when users discuss retirement savings. Investment guidance, loan calculators, and account management tools become embedded in the customer’s financial decision-making process rather than separate destinations they must remember to visit.

Healthcare — Patients ask AI whether to visit urgent care or the emergency room. Providers who create clear, medically accurate components for symptom assessment, appointment scheduling, and care guidance will have their expertise represented in these critical moments. The trust-building happens within the AI conversation rather than through traditional website credibility signals.

Home Improvement — Home Depot’s project calculators and product finders can appear when customers discuss renovation plans. The entire journey from inspiration (“I want to update my kitchen”) through planning, product selection, and purchase completion happens within the conversational flow rather than across multiple retail touchpoints.

Apps in ChatGPT represents the first major step toward what we call the orchestrated web. While websites will certainly still exist—just as they did after the App Store arrived—this shift opens an ecosystem where AI-mediated brand experiences become the starting point for customer interaction. ChatGPT, and future agents like it, now act as the conductor, bringing together the right components at the right moments.

This evolution mirrors how mobile apps transformed desktop computing, but the change will happen faster. Just as apps provided focused, task-specific interfaces that replaced broader desktop applications, AI-native brand apps will provide focused, need-specific experiences that replace broader website functionality.

The implications extend beyond customer-facing experiences. Internal business systems will increasingly integrate with AI interfaces, creating seamless workflows between customer conversations and business operations. Marketing, sales, customer service, and product development converge within AI-native platforms.

For marketing teams, this means developing entirely new competencies. Tomorrow’s brand builders will think like product managers, designing experiences rather than campaigns, optimizing for utility rather than attention. The skills required shift from message crafting to conversation design, from visual aesthetics to functional utility.

The technical infrastructure and design methodologies required for AI-native experiences differ significantly from traditional web development. Your websites need to become structured data repositories that feed conversational experiences rather than destinations designed for human browsing. Building internal expertise or partnering with specialized agencies becomes crucial for competitive positioning.

Most importantly, approach Apps in ChatGPT as the foundation of a new relationship model with customers rather than another marketing channel. The brands that understand this distinction first will capture disproportionate advantage as customer expectations evolve toward conversational, AI-mediated experiences. The question is whether you’ll be among them.

If you’re ready to build yours, let’s talk.