OpenAI has officially launched ChatGPT Work, a new agentic system powered by GPT-5.6 that automates multi-step business tasks across apps, files, and workflows. In the same move, the company is killing its standalone ChatGPT browser extension, merging the Codex coding agent into the ChatGPT desktop app, and releasing a public beta of "Sites" for turning prompts into interactive web apps. This is OpenAI's clearest bet yet on becoming an operating system for knowledge work.
The announcement, made today, consolidates several previously separate OpenAI products into a single ChatGPT super app experience. Here is what changed, what it means, and why it matters if you are building on AI.
ChatGPT Work: The Agentic Layer for Enterprise
ChatGPT Work is the centerpiece of today's announcement. It is a new experience inside ChatGPT that can gather data from Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, SharePoint, email, calendars, CRMs, and project trackers through plugins. Users can trigger it by mentioning a specific app with @ in their prompt, directing ChatGPT to pull context from that source and act on it.
The outputs are not just text. ChatGPT Work can create spreadsheets, slide decks, documents, and web apps as "artifacts" following user-specified templates. It is powered by OpenAI's latest GPT-5.6 model family, giving it the ability to reason through multi-step tasks end to end without hand-holding.
ChatGPT Work is rolling out now to Pro, Enterprise, and Edu plan users on mobile and web. Plus and Business tier users will get access over the next few days.
Codex Lives On Inside ChatGPT's Desktop App
Perhaps the most consequential move for developers: OpenAI is merging the standalone Codex app into the ChatGPT desktop application. Codex will continue to exist as a coding agent, but it now sits inside the broader ChatGPT desktop experience. The existing standalone Codex app installations will be automatically updated to become the new ChatGPT desktop app.
For power users who prefer the Codex-first workflow, OpenAI is offering an escape hatch. Developers can set Codex as the default view when opening the desktop app and even keep the Codex logo as their app icon. The previous version of the ChatGPT desktop app is being renamed "ChatGPT Classic." The message is clear: the old ChatGPT was a chat interface. The new one is a work platform.
The new desktop app includes a built-in browser and Computer Use capabilities, allowing ChatGPT to work across local files, apps, tools, and websites. This is the same infrastructure that powers Codex's ability to interact with your development environment, now extended to every application on your machine.
Scheduled Tasks, Sites, and the Chrome Extension Shake-Up
OpenAI also introduced Scheduled Tasks in the desktop app, a feature ported over from Codex that lets ChatGPT perform actions on a timer, on repeat, or in response to events. A user could set a task to compile customer feedback emails into a summary every morning and send it to the team, no manual prompt required.
The public beta of Sites is another striking addition. Users can turn any natural language prompt into an interactive web app or dashboard, and ChatGPT can keep these sites updated automatically as the underlying data changes. Think internal portals, launch calendars, project trackers, and live reports generated from a single conversation.
On the browser front, OpenAI is releasing an updated Chrome extension that places ChatGPT directly in Chrome's sidebar. But the trade-off is significant: OpenAI is discontinuing its standalone ChatGPT browser extension. The strategy is clear. OpenAI wants users inside the ChatGPT desktop app, not scattered across browser tabs.
What This Means for Founders and Builders
This launch signals OpenAI's ambition to become the control plane for enterprise knowledge work. By merging Codex into ChatGPT, killing the browser extension, and adding scheduled automation and site generation, OpenAI is positioning ChatGPT as the centralized hub where work happens, not just a chatbot you visit for answers.
For founders building AI agents or automation tools, the competitive landscape just shifted. OpenAI is now bundling capabilities that startups have been selling as standalone products: coding agents, browser automation, data connectors, and no-code web app generation. If your product overlaps with any of these, the question is not whether OpenAI will compete with you, but how fast your differentiation erodes.
For enterprise builders, the signal is that OpenAI is serious about the agentic future. ChatGPT Work's ability to connect to CRMs, Slack, and Google Drive out of the box means less integration work on your end. But it also means deeper lock-in to OpenAI's ecosystem. The trade-off between convenience and flexibility has never been sharper.
ChatGPT with Codex and the built-in browser is available globally today for Mac and Windows for all users at no extra cost. The super app era of AI has officially begun.