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OPENAI’S GROWTH HACK = BRING FRIENDS.
After a low-key ‘short’ pilot in selected markets - where OpenAI noted research flows, creative projects, and collective problem solving as early emerging patterns - Group chats went live for all logged-in ChatGPT users across Free, Go, Plus, and Pro plans.
Twenty people can now share one ChatGPT space. People can ask questions, plan projects, troubleshoot code, co-write documents, or brainstorm ideas with ChatGPT acting as a shared assistant in the room. Everyone sees the same stream. Everyone can ask for follow-ups. Everyone can push the thread forward. Everyone can tag ChatGPT to jump in. ChatGPT reads the room, joins when needed, stays quiet when not. Early testers used it for study groups, family projects, and team brainstorms. Screenshots and copied text once held these spaces together. Now ChatGPT sits inside them.
Group chats sit in their own corner of the sidebar. No data crossover. No memory sharing. Invites arrive by link and require approval. Private chats remain untouched, memory stays personal, and no new memories form from group activity. Invites work through unique links. Join requests must be approved. Participants can leave or remove others at any time. Parents can disable the Group chat feature, and safety boundaries for under-18s were underlined at every step.
Group chats also connect directly with apps inside ChatGPT and with Atlas, creating multi-user spaces where ChatGPT can fetch data, browse sources, generate assets, and propose next steps for everyone at once.
The product launched without memories, without cross-chat bleed, and without automatic merging of private threads. OpenAI says Business and Enterprise tiers come next. Early testers inside those tiers have asked for real-time collaboration and shared reasoning spaces for months, so expect the enterprise version to unlock multi-agent workflows, shared documents, and audit controls once the feature matures.
Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of Applications, framed the release as a shift from single-player to multiplayer AI. “Over time, we see ChatGPT playing a more active role in real group conversations, helping people plan, create, and take action together,” OpenAI wrote in an email to TechCrunch.
SO WHAT?
Group chats reposition ChatGPT from a single-user assistant to a shared intelligence layer. The model becomes part of multi-user coordination, embedded directly into the structure of conversation. Parents can guide discussions with children using an always-present reasoning engine. Study groups collaborate with structured AI scaffolding. Teams bring in a shared analyst who remembers context and outputs consistent facts. Prompting becomes collaborative, not individual. Distribution happens through use, not acquisition. Every session creates new access points. Every invite becomes a node in a wirey network.
Enterprise implications are already visible. With shared memory, versioning, and audit-ability, ChatGPT could wrap around existing tools without replacing them. The model sits between people and platforms, not inside either. Teams get persistence without friction, intelligence without onboarding, and continuity without extra layers. Collaboration recurs naturally, and usage compounds. Retention increases because the group sustains momentum. ChatGPT stops behaving like an assistant and begins operating as shared infrastructure. The product looks like chat, but the mechanics belong to the network.
Field Notes
COMPETITORS
Do: See group chats as a viral unlock disguised as a feature.
Don’t: Chase it with your own chat clone, build the layer that connects them.
USERS
Do: Use group spaces to plan, learn, and create together.
Don’t: Sssume privacy settings behave like solo chats.
ENTERPRISES
Do: Test early for secure collaboration and shared-prompt logging
Don’t: Roll out before compliance clears link-based access.
TECH/DEVELOPERS
Do: Watch how models handle conflicting human input in real time.
Don’t: Treat group sessions as sandbox safe zones for credentials.
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COMPANY ↓
OpenAI, staff/leadership profiles, board & governance, mission & values, HQ & global offices, funding rounds & investors, financial health & revenue, partnerships & alliances, organisational structure & hierarchy, regional presence & expansion
OpenAI was named an Emerging Leader in Generative AI by Gartner in the 2025 Gartner Innovation Guide for Generative AI Model Providers. /OpenAI
OpenAI and Target teamed up to bring new AI-powered experiences across retail, including a new Target app in ChatGPT. /OpenAI
OpenAI announced that OpenAI Academy is teaming up with DoorDash and SCORE, and a network of 1,000 local business support organisations to host the Small Business AI Jam. /OpenAI
Larry Summers, ex-US Treasury Secretary, resigned from OpenAI's board after a US House Committee released his emails with Jeffrey Epstein. /axios
OpenAI announced a collaboration with Foxconn to strengthen U.S. manufacturing across the AI supply chain. /OpenAI
An OpenAI factory for data centres was set to receive up to $3 billion from Softbank. /The Information
Gregg Brockman attended a White House dinner for the Saudi Crown Prince along with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Elon Musk. /@gdb
OpenAI’s auditor was named as Deloitte. /FT
Gregg Brockman asked people to reach out to him on join inference [the most valuable emerging software category] at OpenAI on [email protected]. /@gdb
OpenAI announced it’s pulling together a founding team to bring advanced encryption-based privacy to ChatGPT, the OpenAI API, and our future consumer devices. /OpenAI
TECHNOLOGY ↓
ChatGPT ecosystem, DALL·E tools, Whisper audio, product roadmap, prototypes, developer access, integrations, extensions, research, innovations
OpenAI rolled out Group chats in ChatGPT globally to all logged-in users on ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus and Pro plans. After a successful pilot with early testers. /OpenAI
OpenAI launched a free version of ChatGPT built for teachers to support them in their everyday work through June 2027. /OpenAI
OpenAI introduced GPT‑5.1-Codex-Max, our new frontier agentic coding model, available in Codex. /OpenAI + OpenAI
OpenAI published a GPT-5.1-Codex-Max System Card. /OpenAI
OpenAI were promoting the virtual event in OpenAI Forum ‘Vibe Engineering with OpenAI’s Codex.’ /OpenAI
OpenAI published a new AI-Native Engineering Team guide based on what engineering teams are asking for as they adopt Codex. /OpenAI
OpenAI expanded access to localised crisis helplines in ChatGPT to support systems when they detect potential signs that someone may be experiencing distress. /OpenAI
ChatGPT now adds more inline images from the web to help you quickly understand topics. /OpenAI
OpenAI rolled out Instant Checkout to Shopify merchants. /OpenAI
OpenAI explained their goals for "gpt5.1 thinking." /OpenAI
OpenAI shared updated details for ‘Prompt Cache Retention’ in GPT-5.1. /OpenAI
OpenAI shared an update on Codex and usage from Nov 1. /OpenAI
OpenAI announced a new feature for Realtime API SIP connections, which sends users the DTMF phone key presses. /OpenAI
OpenAI shared the article ‘How evals drive the next chapter in AI for businesses.’ /OpenAI
OpenAI shared the article ‘Strengthening our safety ecosystem with external testing,’ detailing OpenAI’s approach to third-party assessments for frontier AI. /OpenAI
OpenAI published new research findings in collaboration with scientists: ‘Early experiments in accelerating science with GPT-5.’ /OpenAI + ZDnet
OpenAI gave Business/Enterprise/Edu plans custom MCP connectors in company knowledge for organisation-specific context. /OpenAI
OpenAI joined forces with Intuit in a multi-year strategic partnership that will make Intuit app experiences available directly within ChatGPT. /OpenAI
OpenAI announced that Codex training now includes Windows. /OpenAI
OpenAI Technical Staff Member Fabian Ponce presented at KubeCon and CloudNativeCon North America 2025 in Atlanta [VID]. /CNCF+ @btibor91.blaho.me
Research was released by SSRN, “ChatGPT in systematic investing - enhancing risk-adjusted stock returns with LLMs”. /SSRN
STRATEGY/IMPACT ↓
Public Policy, CSR, ESG practices, ethics & AI safety, risk management, competitive strategy, thought leadership, industry impact, market positioning & competitive strategy
OpenAI CEO of Applications Fidji Simo spoke to Wired on joining OpenAI, ChatGPT users' mental health, profitability, data centre deals, her chronic illness, and more. /Wired
Sam Altman told OpenAI employees last month that Google's recent progress in AI could “create some temporary economic headwinds for our company. /The Information
OpenAI released the OpenAI Podcast Ep 10: How AI is accelerating scientific discovery today and what’s ahead [VID]. /OpenAI
OpenAI Global Affairs shared a new edition of its Substack: The Prompt “On AI Safety, Federal Laws + State Leadership”. /OpenAI
Sam Altman explained that the rate reduction in price per unit of intelligence is the thing he’s most consistently underestimated in the past couple of years. /@sama
Sam Altman congratulated Google on Gemini 3. /@sama
MISCELLANEOUS ↓
Legal, scandals, industrial action, revenue, profiles, public policy, CSR, ESG, corporate culture, ethics, risk management, Sam Altman investments, +
OpenAI’s Chairman of the Board, Bret Taylor, said his AI agent startup Sierra has hit $100M in ARR, after launching in February 2024, up from about $20M this time last year. /Sources
Ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab was in talks with potential investors to raise about $5B and was aiming for a valuation of at least $50B. /The Information
RESOURCES ↓
POVs, data visualisations & dashboards, key insights & metrics, industry reports & white papers, competitive analysis, recommended reading & book lists, analysis pieces & case studies +
Is the AI sector currently a bubble? /marginalrevolution
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