The era of ‘chat’ as the ultimate use case for artificial intelligence, where users simply ask questions and receive responses, appears to be giving way to a new phase of AI development as OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, prepares to launch a super app centred on coding tools and AI agents.

This was revealed by the Financial Times on Sunday, June 7, following interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees of the company.

“Chat is dead,” Finanial Times quoted one senior OpenAI employee.

The shift comes as OpenAI seeks new sources of revenue and a path to profitability ahead of a potential public listing, while facing growing competition from rival AI company Anthropic, whose enterprise-focused strategy has fuelled rapid growth, according to the report.

Since launching in November 2022, ChatGPT has grown into one of the world’s most widely used consumer applications, attracting more than one billion users monthly. A recent TechMedia Africa report highlighted how the chatbot has become part of everyday life for millions of people, helping with school assignments, workplace tasks, emotional support, financial planning and general information searches.

The company has increasingly expanded those capabilities. In May, OpenAI introduced features that allow users to connect financial accounts to ChatGPT, marking a significant step toward turning the chatbot into a personal finance assistant.

However, three years and seven months after ChatGPT’s debut, OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, appears to be shifting its strategy beyond conversational AI towards what executives describe as a ‘super app’ — a platform capable of helping users and businesses complete tasks automatically across multiple domains.

The future of AI lies in agents

With the global AI market projected to reach $4.8 trillion by 2033, the industry’s greatest opportunity may lie not in simply answering questions, but in enabling software to perform tasks, make decisions and complete complex workflows autonomously.

This technology is known as AI agents.

Unlike traditional chatbots that respond to prompts, AI agents can carry out multi-step actions on behalf of users. They can schedule meetings, organise calendars, book travel, conduct research, write software, analyse data and interact with multiple digital services with limited human intervention.

According to the Financial Times, a growing number of OpenAI executives believe AI agents will ultimately become more valuable than chatbots because they can generate measurable outcomes rather than simply providing information.

“It will transcend the actual surface . . . what we’re building towards is where you have your own personal agent that is capable of helping you . . . across everything in your life, be it personally or at work,” Thibault Sottiaux, who previously ran Codex and now leads all of OpenAI’s core product and platform, told the Financial Times.

Another major use case for AI is software development.

OpenAI’s coding product, Codex, has emerged as one of the company’s fastest-growing offerings. According to the Financial Times, Codex has increased its user base sixfold to more than five million weekly active users since the launch of its desktop application in February. The majority of those users reportedly pay for the service, making it a more lucrative business than the free version of ChatGPT.

The rapid adoption mirrors the success of Anthropic’s Claude Code product, which has become one of the fastest-growing parts of Anthropic’s business as software developers increasingly rely on AI tools to write, review and deploy code.

The frantic race to profitability

The strategic shift comes amid intensifying competition between the world’s leading AI companies.

On March 31, OpenAI announced that it had raised $122 billion in committed capital at a post money valuation of $852 billion, one of the largest private funding rounds in technology history.

Its closest rival, Anthropic, earlier this month confidentially filed paperwork for an initial public offering in the United States after raising funding that valued the company at approximately $965 billion.

The soaring valuations have prompted some analysts to question whether the AI sector is entering bubble territory. Yet despite attracting hundreds of billions of dollars in investor capital, many leading AI companies are still pursuing sustainable profitability.

OpenAI, according to it’s own internal estimates, will not turn profit untill 2030, while Anthropic has indicated that its financial performance could improve significantly making it likely to turn profit this second quarter.

Against that backdrop, OpenAI’s super app strategy is expected to play a central role in increasing revenue from paying customers. The company currently derives a significant share of its income from business users, and executives reportedly expect enterprise customers to account for an even larger portion of revenue by the end of the year.

“Approximately a year ago, OpenAI’s strategy was swing for the fences, whereas Anthropic’s strategy is make money first,” said Jenny Xiao, partner at Leonis Capital and former researcher at OpenAI.

Now the two are converging, because both of them are trying to aim for an IPO and investors care more about money than dreams.”