OpenAI’s (OPENAI) developer day wowed many on Wall Street, as analysts praised the depth and scope of the announcements, including the app integration into ChatGPT and updates to Sora 2 for the Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)-backed company.
Bank of America analyst Justin Post said the revelation that ChatGPT now has 800M weekly users — up from 700M in August and 400M in February — is a sign that OpenAI is expanding its ecosystem at a rapid clip.
“OpenAI’s fast-growing global user base is a key asset to attract the developer community and could help position ChatGPT as a central hub for AI interaction and distribution. We think the new launches raise competitive pressure on Google (GOOG), Meta (META), and Amazon (AMZN) to accelerate their own AI platform strategies,” Post wrote in a note to clients.
Post also said the app integration into ChatGPT could be the “app store for the Gen AI era”, as it introduced an Apps software development kit that allows developers to build interactive, conversational apps accessed via ChatGPT.
“The new Apps SDK could turn ChatGPT into an app ecosystem, evolving ChatGPT a central hub for GenAI applications, similar to how Google Play and the Apple (AAPL) App Store defined the mobile era,” Post added.
He was also positive on the AgentKit announcement, which will allow developers to have a “unified suite” to develop and deploy AI agents, and ChatKit, a tool that will allow for customized chat-based agents inside apps or websites.
“AgentKit is designed to lower the barrier for developers to deploy agents. The tool will likely accelerate adoption of agentic capabilities, which could also be beneficial for Google, Meta & Amazon,” Post added. “However, [the] risk is that OpenAI’s early ecosystem leadership could concentrate developer activity with ChatGPT.”
J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth also expressed optimism on the event, stating the app integration brings ChatGPT “closer to transactional commerce.” Examples that were mentioned at the event include Figma (FIG), Booking.com (BKNG), DoorDash (DASH), Expedia (EXPE) and more.
“We believe this is critical to long-term monetization—including advertising—as it should increase the percentage of queries on ChatGPT that have commercial intent,” Anmuth wrote. “Currently, we believe chatbot queries have low overall commercial intent, with the vast majority of them tied to homework, math problems, coding, etc … While it is a bit of chicken & egg, higher quality bottom-funnel results in ChatGPT should increase the overall mix of commercial queries on the platform.”
Anmuth also expressed optimism on the Sora updates, which is now the top app in the App Store, and has pressures shares of Meta.
“Meta announced Vibes, a feed of AI generated videos within the Meta AI app, just before the Sora 2 release, but Sora has captured greater buzz and more users with its stronger video and audio generation capabilities, and its popular cameo feature that enables users to incorporate themselves & friends into their short-form AI video creations,” Anmuth added. “Sora’s early, strong virality increases competition for engagement & overall time spent across Meta platforms and Google’s YouTube, and it also has the potential to increase the number of content creators online.”