ChatGPT App Directory: Company Presence on the New Application Platform

In December 2025, OpenAI took a key strategic step in ChatGPT's evolution: it launched an App Directory and opened the possibility for developers and companies to submit their own applications for review and publication directly within ChatGPT. OpenAI's official announcement marks the beginning of a new era for conversational AI.

This move transforms ChatGPT from being solely a conversational AI interface into an integrated applications platform: a kind of App Store within ChatGPT, where applications don't just respond with text, but can execute actions, expand conversation context, and offer structured experiences to users.

We are witnessing a paradigm shift.

Until now, ChatGPT primarily functioned as a conversational AI: it answered questions, generated text, and worked with contextualized information, including personalized versions through GPTs or custom assistants.

What's truly new isn't the conversation, but the emergence of native applications within ChatGPT, which:

This is a transformation comparable to when phones evolved from calling devices to become platforms with complete app stores: ChatGPT stops being just a tool and becomes an ecosystem.

Incorporating your company's application into ChatGPT's App Directory opens a real strategic opportunity for branding, acquisition, and customer service.

An app listed in the App Directory places your brand within the environment where millions of people already interact daily with AI.

It's not just visibility: it's becoming part of the user's "toolbox".

Examples like Spotify or Zillow show how users can interact with real services directly in chat. A company can apply the same approach to expose its value without friction.

Instead of users asking freely and receiving generic answers, an app allows offering official, structured, and consistent information, such as:

An app can guide users through frequent flows, for example:

The App Directory already includes notable integrations that serve as references for what can be built:

Creating an app for the App Directory involves several clearly differentiated phases.

Everything starts with a key question:

What concrete problem does the app solve and what value does it provide to the user within the conversation?

Here we define:

OpenAI provides an Apps SDK to build native applications for ChatGPT. This SDK allows defining:

Once developed and internally validated, the app goes through a formal process:

1. Developer Account Verification

A verified account on OpenAI's platform is required.

2. Submission for Review

From the OpenAI Platform Dashboard, the application is uploaded with its metadata, MCP configuration, documentation, and tests.

3. Review by OpenAI

The app is evaluated according to security, usability, and privacy criteria.

4. Approval and Publication

If approved, the application is published in the App Directory and becomes available to users.

5. Updates and Maintenance

Like any software product, it requires monitoring, continuous improvements, and functional evolution.

The ChatGPT App Directory marks a before and after. ChatGPT stops being solely a conversational assistant to become a platform where conversational applications offer complete experiences within the same environment.

For companies, this represents a unique opportunity for visibility and service: it's now possible to expose structured information, guide users, and accompany real processes directly from the AI interface, without forcing them to leave the conversation.

At the same time, it's fundamental to understand what information is appropriate for a public app and what information should never be exposed.

Best practices indicate offering public and valuable content—manuals, guides, FAQs, product sheets, or corporate policies—and always avoiding sensitive data, such as internal financial information, employee data, customer records, or trade secrets.

That type of information requires private systems, with governance, access control, and regulatory compliance, not open applications.

Well designed, a ChatGPT app can become a powerful tool for marketing, support, and engagement, complementing traditional channels in an environment where users already make decisions assisted by AI.

CitriQ was born as a specialized initiative within AlamedaDev to respond to a very concrete market need: more and more organizations want to extend their presence and capabilities to AI interfaces like ChatGPT, but doing so securely, governed, and aligned with their real operation requires much more than prompts or prototypes.

CitriQ is the AlamedaDev team dedicated to AI infrastructure engineering, agentic systems, and native applications for ChatGPT. Our focus is converting corporate information, manuals, documentation, and processes into active systems, capable of integrating with language models and operating reliably within conversational environments.

Through CitriQ we design and build: