Report: OpenAI Says It Will Delay GPT App Store Launch to Early 2024

OpenAI has reportedly delayed the opening of its custom GPT store. 

The store was announced in November and was to launch later that month, but it has now been delayed until early 2024, Reuters reported Friday (Dec. 1), citing an internal memo it had seen. 

OpenAI did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment. 

In the memo seen by Reuters, the company attributed the delay to its continuing efforts to make improvements to the GPTs, per the report. 

When announcing the upcoming launch of the GPT store in early November, OpenAI said it would collect the best customer GPT apps and share revenues with the most popular creators. 

In a report at the time of the announcement, the Financial Times (FT) likened the move to Apple’s entry into the software services market with the launch of its App Store. 

The store will initially feature AI creations from verified builders but will eventually open to the broader public. 

Two million developers around the world are already working with OpenAI’s products, and the company gave away $500 in credits to everyone in the audience at its Developer Day event in November to inspire them to start building with its new tools. 

In the time since that event, OpenAI went through a period of leadership turmoil that saw CEO Sam Altman removed from the company on Nov. 17 but then returned to that post less than a week later. 

It has been reported that one of the issues leading to the ouster of Altman was his plan to open the OpenAI app store. 

Thursday (Nov. 30) marked the first birthday of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the launch of which set off a busy year for the generative AI landscape more broadly. 

Also on Thursday, it was reported that in the first six months that since ChatGPT mobile app has been available, it has been downloaded more than 110 million times and generated $28.6 million in global consumer spending. 

The chatbot’s mobile app racked up those totals since being launched on iOS in May and on Google Play two months later, according to mobile data analytics provider data.ai. 

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