OpenAI finally launches custom GPT Store after months-long delay

After a series of delays, OpenAI has finally launched the much-anticipated GPT Store, a platform allowing paying users of ChatGPT to share their custom bots, referred to as GPTs, or download others’ creations for free. The initial launch date was set for November but got pushed back to December and ultimately to January.

Leading up to the opening of the GPT Store, OpenAI introduced a new review system to ensure that custom GPTs align with its brand guidelines and usage policies. They also made updates to the process of reporting harmful or unsafe GPTs.

Functioning similarly to the Apple App Store, this platform enables individuals who have created their own chatbots to publicly share their versions of ChatGPT. Currently, only subscribers to OpenAI’s paid tiers can create and use custom GPTs.

The store also facilitates the sharing of custom chatbots, broadening the potential use cases for ChatGPT and expanding OpenAI’s ecosystem. Since the announcement of the GPT Builder program in November, users have already created over three million bots. Only those subscribed to OpenAI’s paid tiers can develop and use custom GPTs.

“It’s been two months since we announced GPTs, and users have already created over 3 million custom versions of ChatGPT. Many builders have shared their GPTs for others to use. Today, we’re starting to roll out the GPT Store to ChatGPT Plus, Team and Enterprise users so you can find useful and popular GPTs. Visit chat.openai.com/gpts to explore,” OpenAI said in a blog post.

The GPT Store features bots such as AllTrails, offering hiking recommendations, and a bot capable of generating SEO-optimized blog posts. GPTs are categorized by function (writing, productivity, etc.), and there are plans to introduce a leaderboard for top-performing ones.

OpenAI GPT Store

OpenAI launched GPT Builder in November to make it accessible for those without programming experience to create customized GPT models. Now, builders (referred to as developers by OpenAI) can share their creations in the store.

The GPT Store is being rolled out to users of ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise, as well as subscribers to a new tier named Team.

ChatGPT Team is a paid version targeted at smaller teams of approximately 150 people. Similar to ChatGPT Enterprise, it offers access to GPT-4, DALL-E 3, OpenAI’s Advanced Data Analysis feature, and data control. OpenAI assures that ChatGPT Team data and conversations will not be used to train any of its models. Subscribers to ChatGPT Team can also create custom GPTs for their team’s specific needs or utilize other GPTs from the store.

The pricing for ChatGPT Team is $25 per month per user for annual billing or $30 per month per user for monthly billing.

While OpenAI has shared details about the revenue-sharing program with GPT creators, it stops short of providing specifics on how bot builders will be compensated. The company plans to initiate the revenue-sharing program in the first quarter of the year, with payments based on user engagement with the chatbots, although the exact details remain undisclosed.