OpenAI plans to position ChatGPT as super assistant

Economic Times

4 days ago

OpenAI has revealed plans to turn ChatGPT into a super-assistant, where the core mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is developed in a way that benefits all of humanity.
The company is expanding the role of ChatGPT—positioning it as an advanced, intuitive AI assistant that can understand users deeply and serve as a personalised interface to the internet, an internal company document mentioned.
T-shaped skills
OpenAI describes it as an intelligent entity with T-shaped skills, meaning that it makes meagre to tedious tasks possible. The capabilities include everyday tasks—like scheduling, emailing, searching for information, or planning events, as well as deep, specialised expertise. These are tasks that most people can't do easily without training—like writing code, analysing data, or solving technical problems.
A personalised entity
ChatGPT is poised to become more than just a tool, and turn into an entity personalised for the user. It remembers your preferences, learns from your interactions, and follows you across platforms. Whether you're using it on ChatGPT's website, mobile apps, via email, on the phone, or even through third-party services like Siri, it's the same assistant helping you out in a consistent, familiar way.
SWOT analysis by ChatGPT
The document listed Google's Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Meta AI as rivals in the AI-chatbot race.
'Looking ahead to 2025, poses the biggest threat due to their ability to embed equivalent functionality across their products (e.g. without facing the business model cannibalisation risks that Google does),' it said.The company is positioning ChatGPT not as a direct competitor to Google or Microsoft, but as a new kind of interface—one that handles a growing range of tasks traditionally spread across multiple apps, websites, or even conversations with other people. 'We don't call it a search engine, a browser, or an OS—it's just ChatGPT,' the company said internally.OpenAI says it has the edge in key areas: world-class research, leadership in multimodal AI and reasoning, access to compute, and a growing team of fast-moving, empowered builders. But maintaining that lead, it acknowledges, will take discipline and sustained effort.
Also Read: OpenAI leads surge in business AI adoption, Ramp AI Index reveals
Towards AI-neutrality
OpenAI is also pushing for platform neutrality in how AI assistants reach users. 'Real choice drives competition and benefits everyone,' it said. The company believes users should be able to set ChatGPT as their default assistant across iOS, Android, and Windows—and that Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Meta should not push their own assistants without offering fair alternatives.That principle, OpenAI said, should also apply to search. Dominant platforms should give users a choice of default search engines, and make their indexes accessible to AI assistants—including ChatGPT.
Trends shaping the industry
In 2024, OpenAI emerged as the top organisational contributor, releasing seven notable AI models and emerging as a key player in general-purpose AI systems. Close behind, Google followed with six significant model launches, reinforcing its long-standing leadership in machine learning (ML) innovation.
Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft plan to allocate up to $320 billion combined towards AI, marking a significant increase from $230 billion in 2024.