ChatGPT isn’t a chatbot anymore.
OpenAI recently turned it into something bigger…
A conversational hub for everything you do online. At Dev Day 2025, they showed off a vision where you don’t bounce between apps or hunt through websites. You just talk, and it all happens in one chat.
If this catches on, it changes how you run your business online.
What OpenAI Actually Announced
Two things drive this new direction.
The Apps SDK lets developers build interactive apps right inside ChatGPT. They partnered with Canva, Figma, Spotify, Coursera, and Zillow at launch. You can design graphics, play music, look at properties, or learn something new without leaving the chat.
AgentKit gives you a drag-and-drop builder for creating agents that handle tasks. During the keynote, an OpenAI engineer built a complete workflow and two agents on stage in under eight minutes.
That’s what they built. Here’s what it means for you.
The Shift To Talking Instead Of Clicking
OpenAI thinks conversation will replace clicking as the main way people use digital tools.
Instead of jumping between apps, you stay put. You brainstorm in ChatGPT, design with Canva, check facts, share stuff, and run workflows all in one spot.
This goes against everything Apple, Google, and Microsoft built over the past few decades. They made their fortunes on visual menus and separate apps. OpenAI wants to replace all that with plain English.
The tech works fine.
The real question is whether you and your customers want to work this way.
Why This Matters For Your Business
AI adoption among small businesses hit 58% in 2025. That’s more than double the 23% from 2023. And it’s still climbing.
But here’s the thing: most businesses are adding random AI tools instead of building systems. A chatbot here, some automation there, maybe testing content generation.
OpenAI’s vision points to something different.
Instead of tacking AI onto what you already do, you could run big chunks of your operation through conversation. Customer questions, booking appointments, automating workflows, creating content, analysing data. All through talking instead of juggling five different software subscriptions.
That’s a big deal.
AgentKit makes workflow automation accessible without hiring developers or paying for expensive platforms like Zapier. If you really can build working agents in minutes instead of weeks, the barrier drops fast.
Which creates both opportunity and urgency.
The Competitive Reality
66% of businesses now say AI is essential to stay competitive. Among people already using it, 78% feel pressure to keep up.
The window for getting ahead is closing.
Early adopters get more efficient whilst everyone else struggles to catch up. The gap grows as AI gets better. Businesses that figure out conversational interfaces and automated agents run leaner and respond faster.
But jumping in without a plan creates different problems.
What Actually Works For Small Businesses
The tech looks great. The hype is everywhere. Making it work takes focus.
Conversational AI handles certain jobs really well: answering customer questions, booking appointments, basic troubleshooting, finding information, automating routine tasks. These pay off quickly.
Workflow agents shine at linking different systems, automating repetitive work, and managing multi-step processes you used to do manually.
What doesn’t work is adding tech without knowing what’s actually slowing you down.
Most AI projects fail because businesses buy tools instead of fixing problems. They add chatbots without mapping where customers get stuck. They build agents without figuring out which processes really need automation.
The opportunity isn’t the technology. It’s using that technology to solve your specific problems.
Why You Need A Partner, Not Just Tools
OpenAI’s announcements confirm what I’ve seen working with local businesses: AI transformation needs ongoing partnership, not a one-time setup.
The tech moves too fast for set-it-and-forget-it. AgentKit today looks nothing like automation tools from six months ago. New capabilities through APIs like GPT-5 Pro and Codex create fresh opportunities every month.
You need someone who gets both the technology and how your business actually runs. Someone who can turn announcements like Dev Day into practical steps for your industry and challenges.
That’s where real transformation happens.
Not chasing every shiny new feature, but strategically implementing what solves real problems. Not scattered tools, but connected systems that build on each other.
What This Means For You
OpenAI’s conversational vision might work or it might not. The regulatory hurdles are real. Whether people will adopt it is a fair question.
But the bigger trend is clear: AI is moving from experiment to essential. From random tools to connected systems. From interesting tech to competitive requirement.
The businesses that win won’t have the most AI tools. They’ll have the clearest plan for using AI to solve their specific problems.
That means knowing what’s real, what’s hype, and what actually helps your business model.
It means partnering with someone who keeps up with tech capabilities whilst staying grounded in how businesses actually operate.
The opportunity is real. The window is closing. How you approach it matters more than which tools you pick.
