At San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, framed by the Golden Gate Bridge, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman unveiled an audacious plan to reshape the digital world. The company that brought generative AI to the mainstream with a simple chatbot is now building a new kind of computing platform — one designed to step beyond screens and browsers. And it’s doing so with the help of legendary designer Jony Ive, the creative mind behind Apple’s most iconic devices.
ChatGPT: from Chatbot to digital ecosystem
At its third annual Dev Day, OpenAI revealed a suite of innovations that mark its transformation from a model provider into a fully fledged ecosystem builder. Altman described the shift as a move “from systems you can ask anything to, to systems you can ask to do anything for you.”
The centerpiece of this evolution is ChatGPT’s transformation into an operating platform. With the launch of the new Apps SDK, OpenAI is opening the gates for developers to build and distribute their own applications inside ChatGPT — effectively turning it into the next “App Store.”
Live demos featuring Coursera, Canva, and Zillow showed how users can now watch a video lecture, ask ChatGPT for real-time clarification, and create a design in Canva — all within a single conversational interface. Apps can now render interactive UI elements and even go full-screen, providing an immersive, app-like experience without leaving the chat.
For developers, the new SDK offers something even more valuable: distribution. As Altman put it, “When you build with the Apps SDK, your apps can reach hundreds of millions of ChatGPT users.”
Nick Turley, head of ChatGPT, clarified in a press briefing, “We never meant to build just a chatbot. We meant to build a super-assistant — a foundation for others to innovate on.” The company’s goal, he explained, is not to trap users in the ChatGPT interface, but to empower others to build thriving digital businesses on top of it.
The age of agents: from conversations to actions
If the new Apps SDK brings the world into ChatGPT, the Agent Kit sends ChatGPT out into the world. This toolkit allows developers to build autonomous AI agents that can take actions, make decisions, and automate complex workflows.
During the keynote, OpenAI showcased how the financial operations platform Ramp used Agent Kit to create a procurement agent. A user could simply type, “I need five more ChatGPT business seats,” and the agent would verify budget policies, find vendor details, and prepare a virtual card for payment — a process once taking weeks now done in minutes.
According to OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap, this represents the next phase of enterprise AI:
“AI has to move from just producing text to actually doing things for you. That’s where the productivity revolution begins.”
Codex Reborn — and the Jony Ive Hardware revelation
Another dramatic leap came with the rebirth of Codex, OpenAI’s AI programming agent, now powered by GPT-5. It has evolved from a research experiment into what engineers describe as “a colleague who understands your context.” Codex can write code from Slack commands, submit pull requests, review other developers’ work, and even turn a photo of a whiteboard sketch into a fully functional app interface.
But the day’s biggest surprise came in a private fireside chat between Altman and Jony Ive. The pair revealed a three-year collaboration on a new generation of AI-native hardware.
Ive — who helped define the aesthetic of the iPhone, iMac, and Apple Watch — described the project as a human-centered response to a technological crisis.
“It would be absurd,” Ive said, “to think that such breathtaking technology could be delivered through decades-old devices. This is our chance to design something that restores balance — to replace despair with possibility.”
He spoke about care as the essence of great design:
“You can feel when people have cared — and when they haven’t. You can feel when something was made for you, or when it was made for money.”
The message was unmistakable: OpenAI is no longer just shaping the cloud — it’s shaping the physical interface of human-AI coexistence.
The unending hunger for compute
Behind all the dazzling product announcements lies one existential challenge: computing power. Again and again throughout Dev Day, OpenAI leadership returned to the same point — everyone is constrained by compute.
Altman admitted, “Even with massive new partnerships with AMD and others, we’ll still be saying the same thing next year — there’s just so much demand.”
He framed the company’s ongoing infrastructure expansion as a kind of creative reinvestment:
“Walt Disney once said, ‘We make more money so we can make more movies.’ For us, the movies are ever more powerful models.”
President Greg Brockman went further:
“In the near future, AI will become the fundamental driver of global economic growth. Asking ‘how much compute do you need?’ is like asking how much workforce you want — you can always do more with more.”
As the sun set over San Francisco, it became clear that OpenAI is no longer merely building AI — it’s building the world AI will live in: one of intelligent apps, autonomous agents, and new physical interfaces. In this world, intelligence itself becomes the ultimate platform.
OpenAI’s Dev Day wasn’t just a tech event — it was the unveiling of a new digital economy. ChatGPT’s evolution into a full ecosystem signals the rise of a new kind of internet, one where users no longer navigate apps — they converse with them.
For developing nations like Uzbekistan, this shift carries profound potential. Early adaptation to AI ecosystems could accelerate digital exports, online education, and creative industries. However, Pivot.uz experts also highlight the growing importance of AI sovereignty — ensuring that local languages, cultures, and data remain protected in a world increasingly dominated by global AI infrastructures.
As OpenAI moves from software to hardware and from words to actions, one truth becomes evident: the AI revolution is no longer virtual. It’s becoming human.
