OpenAI on Tuesday launched a less expensive artificial intelligence (AI) model and tools that run continuously, as it aims to reposition ChatGPT as an app store for AI.
Other companies, such as Adobe, will be able to offer their software directly within ChatGPT, which is now used weekly by 1.2 billion people. ChatGPT users will also be able to access their subscriptions in other apps.
"We want to help people discover what you build and connect you with new customers," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told around 2,500 developers from around the world who gathered on the shores of the San Francisco Bay for the company's annual conference.
During his keynote speech, the 41-year-old executive made no mention of multiple security incidents that forced OpenAI to once again suspend development of some models on Friday, after one of its agents gained unauthorized access to the internet.
Altman told reporters that "it is going to take us some time to figure out how to make sure that alignment, monitoring, safety, security stay well ahead of capabilities."
A new model unveiled on Tuesday, GPT-6.1 Sol, was described as almost as powerful as GPT-6 Astra at one-fifth the price. It comes one day after the company said it scrapped a new version of Astra because it often ignored instructions.
— New "Renaissance" —
Outside the conference, around thirty protesters shouted chants like "put people before profit," alongside demands that OpenAI drop contracts with the U.S. military and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Inside, Altman rejected comparisons between the AI era and the Industrial Revolution.
"I think we should learn from the mistakes of the Industrial Revolution, and I think we should be more like the Renaissance," Altman said.
That new renaissance is now increasingly connected to agentic software – or programs capable of automatically completing tasks like managing calendars, booking reservations and sorting through email.
Attendees cheered the arrival of "dots" – OpenAI's version of AI agents which will run continuously and ask users to approve sensitive actions.
Dots will only be available to paid subscribers and are not yet available to individual users in the European Union, Switzerland and the United Kingdom due to regulations, though OpenAI hopes to resolve those issues.
It competes with Meta's Muse and Google's Spark agents.
Last week Meta unveiled a small tamagotchi-like device powered by Muse that could ship by December. OpenAI is working on its own AI hardware but provided no updates.