"Chat is dead": OpenAI preps overhaul of ChatGPT

Its launch has intensified competition with Anthropic, whose Claude Code product has emerged as one of the start-up’s fastest-growing businesses. “Approximately a year ago, OpenAI’s strategy was swing for the fences, whereas Anthropic’s strategy is make money first,” said Jenny Xiao, partner at Leonis Capital and former researcher at OpenAI. “Now the two are converging, because both of them are trying to aim for an IPO and investors care more about money than dreams.” To encourage users to adopt those services, OpenAI is redesigning ChatGPT’s interface, adding new prompts and features that direct users towards coding tools, image generation and applications built by partners such as Canva and Booking.com, according to people familiar with the plans. Over time, OpenAI intends to ditch the prompts and features, betting that its models will be able to automatically understand users’ intentions when they are on the app or site. This year, the company has brought ChatGPT, Codex and other product teams under a single leadership group led by Sottiaux, while several senior executives, including former product head Kevin Weil, have departed. In a sign of OpenAI’s push to win more business customers, some consumer-focused initiatives have been sidelined, including a checkout feature that allowed purchases within ChatGPT. It also shut down Sora, its video-generation product, less than a year since its launch. Executives believe users will increasingly interact with a single AI assistant rather than a collection of separate applications. As agents become more capable, OpenAI expects the distinction between chatbots, coding tools, search products and other software categories to blur. “When we have [artificial general intelligence], I don’t think there will be a large number of distinct brands,” said Alex Embiricos, OpenAI’s head of enterprise product. “Probably there will be a single entity that I can talk to that can do whatever I need.” © 2026 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.