Why you’re about to see ChatGPT in more of your apps

By Samantha Murphy Kelly, CNN Business

Prepare to see ChatGPT responses in even more places.

OpenAI is opening up access to its ChatGPT tool to third-party businesses, paving the way for the viral AI chatbot to be integrated into numerous apps and services.

The company on Wednesday said developers can now access ChatGPT’s application programming interface, or API, which will allow companies to integrate the tool’s chat functionality and answers into their platforms. Instacart, Snap and tutor app Quizlet are among the early partners experimenting with adding ChatGPT.

The move comes three months after OpenAI publicly released ChatGPT and stunned many users with the tool’s impressive ability to generate original essays, stories and song lyrics in response to user prompts. The initial wave of attention on the tool helped renew an arms race among tech companies to develop and deploy similar AI tools in their products.

The initial batch of companies tapping into OpenAI’s API each have slightly different visions for how to incorporate ChatGPT. Taken together, however, these services may test just how useful AI chatbots can really be in our everyday life and how much people want to interact with them for customer service and other uses across their favorite apps.

Snap, the company behind Snapchat, plans to offer a customizable chatbot that offers recommendations, helps users make plans or even writes a haiku in seconds. Quizlet, which has more than 60 million students using the service, is introducing a chatbot that can ask questions based on study materials to help students prepare for exams.

Shopify’s consumer app, Shop, and Instacart are both launching chatbots that could help inform customers’ shopping decisions. Instacart plans to use the tool to allow users to ask questions such as “How do I make great fish tacos?” or “What’s a healthy lunch for my kids?” Instacart also plans to launch an “Ask Instacart” chatbot later this year.

There is clearly demand for other businesses to follow suit. Dating website OkCupid has already experimented with using ChatGPT to write matching questions. Other companies like Fanatics have previously expressed interest in using similar technology to power a customer service chatbot.

“With the level of user interest and use, companies don’t want to be left behind, so there’s a base incentive to embrace new tech to remain competitive,” said Michael Inouye, an analyst at ABI Research. “If users engage more with a service that means more data for advertising, marketing of goods and services, and potentially stronger customer relationships.”

There are some risks, however. Although ChatGPT has gained significant traction among users, it has also raised some concerns, including about its potential to perpetuate biases and spread misinformation. Some school systems, such as in New York and Seattle, banned the use of ChatGPT in the classroom over concerns about students cheating. And JPMorgan Chase is temporarily clamping down on employee use due to limits on third-party software due to compliance concerns.

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