Test

ANALYSIS  Â·  ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE  Â·  BUSINESS
OpenAI’s Biggest Bet: Turning ChatGPT Into an AI Superapp Before Going Public
The company is dismantling its famous chatbot and rebuilding it as an all-in-one enterprise platform — a race against time, competition, and its own unprofitable model.
Staff Report  Â·  San Francisco
June 2026
900M
WEEKLY ACTIVE USERS
$850B
COMPANY VALUATION
5M+
WEEKLY CODEX USERS
OpenAI is preparing the most significant transformation of ChatGPT since its historic launch in late 2022. The San Francisco-based AI powerhouse plans to recast its viral chatbot as an all-in-one superapp — combining advanced coding tools and autonomous AI agents capable of executing complex, multi-step tasks — ahead of a highly anticipated IPO scheduled for later this year.
Chat is dead
For years, ChatGPT operated primarily as a question-and-answer text interface. That era is being declared over. Internal conviction within OpenAI has fundamentally shifted: executives now believe the consumer tech boom has moved well past basic conversational prompts.
“Chat is dead.”
€” SENIOR OPENAI EMPLOYEE
In its place, the platform will centre on AI agents — intelligent systems capable of handling real-world workflows such as organising calendars, booking travel, or executing software tasks on a user’s behalf. As part of this shift, OpenAI is granting central prominence to Codex, its developer tool. Since launching a desktop app in February 2026, Codex has exploded sixfold to more than 5 million weekly active users. The upcoming redesign will merge ChatGPT and Codex into a single interface, actively nudging users away from text prompts and toward built-in programming and automation tools.
The profitability problem
Despite 900 million weekly active users and 50 million paying subscribers, the vast majority of ChatGPT’s user base uses the platform for free. Running large AI models at this scale incurs enormous computational costs, leaving OpenAI deeply unprofitable despite generating billions in top-line revenue.
The restructuring targets that imbalance directly. The 2 million businesses currently using OpenAI products account for roughly 40 percent of total revenue. Executives expect that figure to reach 50 percent by end of 2026. By designing the consumer interface to direct users toward high-value corporate tools and partner integrations — including Canva and Booking.com — OpenAI hopes to rapidly scale enterprise adoption and build the kind of margins that impress public-market investors.
The reorganisation has been sweeping. ChatGPT, Codex, and API teams have been consolidated under a single leadership group. Consumer features that don’t serve the enterprise push have been deprioritised. The company’s video-generation product, Sora, was shuttered less than a year after launch to free up engineering and computing resources.
The IPO race
OpenAI’s urgency is sharpened by competitive pressure. Its chief rival, Anthropic, filed a confidential S-1 with the SEC on June 1, 2026, initiating its own public listing — driven by rapid enterprise growth around its Claude Code ecosystem. The upcoming ChatGPT overhaul mirrors Anthropic’s strategy: deep enterprise utility over casual consumer novelty.
Key moments in the shift
LATE 2022
ChatGPT launches as a conversational text interface, triggering a global AI boom.
FEBRUARY 2026
Codex desktop app launches. Weekly users grow sixfold within months to over 5 million.
MID-2026
Sora video product shuttered. ChatGPT, Codex, and API teams unified under single leadership.
JUNE 1, 2026
Anthropic files confidential S-1, accelerating pressure on OpenAI’s IPO timeline.
LATE 2026
OpenAI targets enterprise revenue reaching 50% of total, and a public listing.
Long term, OpenAI intends to remove manual user friction entirely — eventually phasing out traditional prompts altogether. The company is betting that its next-generation models will automatically interpret a user’s intentions based on their active environment, blurring the lines between chatbot, code editor, and conventional software. Whether the market will reward that ambition remains to be seen. But the pivot is now clearly underway.
OPENAI
CHATGPT
AI AGENTS
IPO
ANTHROPIC
ENTERPRISE AI