Open AI had their dev day today where they launched a series of initiatives. If you watched the dev day, you may have taken notice to
Apps on ChatGPT
AgentKit, ChatKit and a Visual Agent builder canvas
GPT 5 Pro & Sora 2 via API
Key Implications
OpenAI has restarted its attempts to create an app ecosystem around chatGPT another attempt at kickstarting the GPT economy
Launched an AgentKit & ChatKit to potentially compete with n8n and zapier with a chatbot like twist
The Apps Gambit on ChatGPT - Round 2
The plugin store did not quite work out for OpenAI facing challenges with adoption, brittleness of capabilities. This seems to be a new attempt to build on top of an MCP like ecosystem to connect apps with native experiences within chatGPT. The use cases shown were figma, canva and zillow. It does make sense that developers building MCPs for their apps be allowed to have a bit more control over the front end via chatGPT. I think this will be more useful for B2C like applications because they tend to have simpler flows. I can’t imagine someone trying to chat their way through designing a poster on Canva so it does seem like the use cases that they picked were off. But having distribution on chatGPT could be a major unlock for b2c companies with more transactional flows like Uber, Doordash or Instacart (hello Fidji, new apps CEO, old instacart CEO).
The Token Economy
OpenAI also shared a list of their developers along with the tiers of Tokens processed. This is really interesting because it helps us understand the $3Bn in spend that is expected to happen in 2025 which is about 20-30% of openAI’s revenue.
They revealed three categories -
Tier 1 - 1 Trillion Tokens
Tier 2 - 100B Tokens
Tier 3 - 10B Tokens
This also gives an interesting insight into what kind of applications are consuming more tokens on OpenAI. After some AI prompting and stringing together multiple tools, I was able to procure the list of companies and here are the key insights.
OpenAI dev day tokens processed by developers
Name | Tier | Company | Classification | Category Notes |
Isaac Andersen | Green (1T Tier) | Duolingo | Public Company / Unicorn | Public company (NASDAQ: DUOL), language learning platform |
Alex Atallah | Green (1T Tier) | OpenRouter; OpenSea | AI Startup / Scale-up | CEO of OpenRouter (AI routing), Co-founder of OpenSea (NFT marketplace unicorn) |
Chris Colon | Green (1T Tier) | Highway Cannabis Co. | Startup | Cannabis retail/dispensary startup |
John Emmons | Green (1T Tier) | Project Wilbur | Startup | Early-stage project/startup |
Harjot Gill | Green (1T Tier) | CodeRabbit | AI Startup | AI-powered code review platform |
Cris Ippolite | Green (1T Tier) | iSolutionsAI | AI Startup | AI solutions provider |
Jiahui Jiang | Green (1T Tier) | Multiple | Ambiguous | Multiple companies - healthcare, pharma, finance, utility |
Mahesh Kumar | Green (1T Tier) | Uber | Scale-up | Large public software company |
Calvin Lee | Green (1T Tier) | Adobe | Public Company | Large public software company (NASDAQ: ADBE) |
Zachary Lipton | Green (1T Tier) | Abridge | AI Startup / Scale-up | Healthcare AI startup for medical conversations |
Joel Liu | Green (1T Tier) | Vidline Inc. | Startup | Video/media startup |
Zach Lloyd | Green (1T Tier) | Warp | AI Startup | AI-powered terminal/developer tools |
Dani Passos | Green (1T Tier) | D&P Design Solutions | Small Business | Design consultancy |
Sarah Sachs | Green (1T Tier) | Notion | Unicorn / Scale-up | Productivity software unicorn |
Douglas Schonholtz | Green (1T Tier) | WHOOP | Scale-up | Wearable fitness tech company |
Praty Sharma | Green (1T Tier) | Imark Infotech | Startup | IT services/infotech company |
Denis Shiryaev | Blue (100B Tier) | YouTube | Individual Creator | Independent content creator on YouTube platform |
Sam Spelsberg | Blue (100B Tier) | Delphi | AI Startup | AI digital cloning platform |
Ashwin Sreenivas | Blue (100B Tier) | Decagon | AI Startup | AI customer support automation |
Shriram Sridharan | Blue (100B Tier) | Rox | Startup | Financial services/trading platform |
Nandan Thor | Blue (100B Tier) | Palo Alto Networks | Public Company | Large cybersecurity company (NASDAQ: PANW) |
Shashi Upadhyay | Blue (100B Tier) | Zendesk | Public Company | Customer service software (private after acquisition) |
Aaron Weldy | Blue (100B Tier) | AV Concepts | Traditional Company | Audio-visual production services |
Luke Woloszyn | Blue (100B Tier) | Read AI | AI Startup | AI meeting assistant |
Danny Wu | Blue (100B Tier) | Broadcom Inc. | Public Company | Large semiconductor company (NASDAQ: AVGO) |
Scott Wu | Blue (100B Tier) | Cognition AI | AI Startup | AI coding assistant (Devin AI), high-profile startup |
Kai Xin Tai | Blue (100B Tier) | Datadog | Public Company | Cloud monitoring platform (NASDAQ: DDOG) |
Denis Yarats | Blue (100B Tier) | Perplexity | AI Startup / Scale-up | AI search engine, well-funded startup |
Pablo Zamudio | Blue (100B Tier) | Multiple | Ambiguous | Multiple possible companies across telecom, e-commerce |
Kay Zhu | Blue (100B Tier) | Genspark | AI Startup | AI search/discovery platform |
David Alison | Blue (100B Tier) | Trustwave | Traditional Enterprise | Cybersecurity services company |
Alessandro Alter | Blue (100B Tier) | Scalestack | Startup | Tech/software startup |
Tarun Amasa | Blue (100B Tier) | Endex | AI Startup | AI platform |
Ali Ansari | Blue (100B Tier) | micro1 | AI Startup | AI-powered hiring/recruiting platform |
Curt Baser | Blue (100B Tier) | Miro | Unicorn / Scale-up | Collaboration platform unicorn |
Sarav Bhatia | Blue (100B Tier) | Navan | Unicorn / Scale-up | Travel and expense management unicorn (formerly TripActions) |
Michael Brady | Blue (100B Tier) | Unknown | Ambiguous | No company information |
Jenny Bright | Blue (100B Tier) | Enrollify | Startup | Enrollment/education tech startup |
Silvio Carballo | Blue (100B Tier) | Atom | Startup | Could be various Atom companies - banking, software, etc. |
Ryan Carson | Blue (100B Tier) | Treehouse | Scale-up | Online education/coding bootcamp |
Wei-Lin Chiang | Blue (100B Tier) | LMArena | AI Research | LM Arena/LMSYS - AI model evaluation platform |
Sarah Chieng | Blue (100B Tier) | Cerebras Systems | AI Scale-up | AI chip company, well-funded hardware startup |
Gabriel Chua | Blue (100B Tier) | GovTech Singapore | Government Agency | Singapore government technology agency |
Will Cohen | Blue (100B Tier) | Multiple | Ambiguous | Multiple possible companies |
Caitlin Colgrove | Blue (100B Tier) | Hex | Startup / Scale-up | Data workspace/analytics platform |
Alex Duffy | Blue (100B Tier) | Coldwell Banker | Traditional Enterprise | Large real estate brokerage |
Grant Evans | Blue (100B Tier) | Stripe | Unicorn / Scale-up | Major fintech unicorn/scale-up |
Chaz Englander | Blue (100B Tier) | Model ML | AI Startup | ML/AI platform |
Gautam Golwala | Blue (100B Tier) | Poshmark | Public Company | Social commerce platform (acquired by Naver) |
Chelle Gray | Blue (100B Tier) | Symph | Startup | Software development company |
Trey Griffin | Blue (100B Tier) | Raptive | Scale-up | Digital advertising platform (formerly CafeMedia) |
Jayesh Gupta | Blue (100B Tier) | Unknown | Ambiguous | No company information |
Mouad Hadji | Blue (100B Tier) | Scribe | AI Startup | AI documentation/process tool |
Sota Hayashi | Blue (100B Tier) | Trader Joe's | Traditional Enterprise | Large grocery chain |
Connor Heigle | Blue (100B Tier) | Unknown | Ambiguous | No company information |
Tanner Heton | Blue (100B Tier) | SnugZ USA | Traditional Company | Promotional products manufacturer |
Ellie Hertel | Blue (100B Tier) | People Inc. | Non-profit / Traditional | Social services organization |
Mehak Kamal | Blue (100B Tier) | Virginia Tech | Educational Institution | University |
Charles Kemp | Blue (100B Tier) | Unknown | Ambiguous | No company information |
John Lai | Blue (100B Tier) | Mister Car Wash | Public Company | Car wash chain (NYSE: MCW) |
Yash Lala | Blue (100B Tier) | Suki AI | AI Startup / Scale-up | Healthcare AI voice assistant |
Eliam Levitov | Blue (100B Tier) | Stream | Scale-up | API platform for messaging/video |
Rongxin Liu | Blue (100B Tier) | Harvard University | Educational Institution | University |
Emaad Manzoor | Blue (100B Tier) | Cornell University | Educational Institution | University |
Sidd Mehta | Blue (100B Tier) | Unknown | Ambiguous | No company information |
Bruno Miranda | Blue (100B Tier) | UBS | Public Company | Major global bank |
Michael Moore | Blue (100B Tier) | Dog Eat Dog Films | Small Business | Film production company |
Katharina Neubert | Blue (100B Tier) | Holtzbrinck | Traditional Enterprise | Major publishing group |
Dat Ngo | Blue (100B Tier) | TPBank | Public Company | Vietnamese bank |
Cory Ondrejka | Blue (100B Tier) | SmartNews | Scale-up | News aggregation app, well-funded |
Nancy Otero | Blue (100B Tier) | Allied Partners | Traditional Company | Consulting/services firm |
Alex Page | Blue (100B Tier) | RØDE Microphones | Traditional Enterprise | Audio equipment manufacturer |
Saurav Panda | Blue (100B Tier) | CloudCode AI | AI Startup | AI development platform |
Nithya Paril | Blue (100B Tier) | Unknown | Ambiguous | No company information |
Ramesh Periyathambi | Blue (100B Tier) | eBay | Public Company | Major e-commerce platform (NASDAQ: EBAY) |
James Peterson | Blue (100B Tier) | Multiple | Ambiguous | Multiple possible companies - consulting, finance |
Bradley Portney | Blue (100B Tier) | Unknown | Ambiguous | No company information |
Eric Purdy | Blue (100B Tier) | Cerity Partners | Traditional Enterprise | Wealth management firm |
Uday Rajanna | Blue (100B Tier) | Upstart | Public Company | AI lending platform (NASDAQ: UPST) |
Tiago Ramalho | Blue (100B Tier) | Recursive AI | AI Startup | AI research/development company |
Vineet Rao | Blue (100B Tier) | Multiple | Ambiguous | Multiple possible companies |
Jay Rodge | Blue (100B Tier) | NVIDIA | Public Company | Major GPU/AI chip company (NASDAQ: NVDA) |
Andrew Rogers | Blue (100B Tier) | Boundary Stone | Traditional Company | Consulting/advisory firm |
Matthew Roknich | Blue (100B Tier) | Retool | Unicorn / Scale-up | Internal tool builder, unicorn status |
Manuel Romero | Blue (100B Tier) | Unknown | Ambiguous | No company information |
Robert Ross | Blue (100B Tier) | Ross Company | Traditional Company | Industrial equipment/services |
Adam Seligman | Blue (100B Tier) | Workato | Unicorn / Scale-up | Integration/automation platform, unicorn |
Sumanuyu Sharma | Blue (100B Tier) | Hamming AI | AI Startup | AI testing/evaluation platform |
Bill Shouldis | Blue (100B Tier) | Intenna Systems | Startup | Tech/systems company |
Jeret Shuck | Blue (100B Tier) | SoftBank | Public Company / VC | Major investment firm |
Srijan Subedi | Blue (100B Tier) | Reworkd | AI Startup | AI web scraping/automation |
Jed Thompson | Blue (100B Tier) | John Deere | Public Company | Major agricultural equipment company (NYSE: DE) |
Jesse Thomson | Blue (100B Tier) | Startup / Scale-up | Video research platform | |
Alex Volkov | Blue (100B Tier) | ExxonMobil | Public Company | Major oil/gas company (NYSE: XOM) |
Markie Wagner | Blue (100B Tier) | Forge | Scale-up | Private market trading platform |
Maggie Wang | Blue (100B Tier) | Citi | Public Company | Major global bank (NYSE: C) |
Frank Wittkamp | Blue (100B Tier) | Databook | Startup / Scale-up | Strategic account planning platform |
Cyril Zakka | Blue (100B Tier) | Hugging Face | AI Scale-up / Unicorn | Major AI/ML platform, unicorn status |
Vas Zhovner | Blue (100B Tier) | Granola | AI Startup | AI note-taking tool |
Marco Zoncu | Blue (100B Tier) | SonicJobs | Startup | Job search platform |
Zain Adil | Blue (100B Tier) | Superblocks | Startup / Scale-up | Internal tool development platform |
Aditi Agni | Blue (100B Tier) | OpenAI | AI Scale-up / Unicorn | Leading AI research company |
Ignacio Andreu | Blue (100B Tier) | Vanta | Unicorn / Scale-up | Security compliance automation, unicorn |
Ian Baldwin | Blue (100B Tier) | Unknown | Ambiguous | No company information |
Jeff Barg | Blue (100B Tier) | Clay | AI Startup / Scale-up | AI-powered data enrichment/outreach |
Dean Barr | Blue (100B Tier) | Corm | Startup | Community management platform |
Blake Bassett | Blue (100B Tier) | Tubi | Scale-up / Public | Streaming service (owned by Fox) |
Cameron Berg | Blue (100B Tier) | AE Studio | Traditional Company | Software development agency |
Mike Caballero | Blue (100B Tier) | Northrop Grumman | Public Company | Major aerospace/defense contractor (NYSE: NOC) |
Min Chen | Blue (100B Tier) | Multiple | Ambiguous | Multiple possible companies |
Barkley Dai | Blue (100B Tier) | Luma AI | AI Startup / Scale-up | AI 3D capture/video generation |
Drew Das | Blue (100B Tier) | Sixfold | Startup | Supply chain visibility platform |
Jonny Dimond | Blue (100B Tier) | Shortwave | Startup | AI email client |
Kai Du | Blue (100B Tier) | CITIC Pacific Mining | Public Company | Mining company (Hong Kong listed) |
Yasser Elsaid | Blue (100B Tier) | Telecom Egypt | Public Company | National telecom provider |
Yenchia Feng | Blue (100B Tier) | Distyl AI | AI Startup | AI data management platform |
Paulo Friandi | Blue (100B Tier) | Unknown | Ambiguous | No company information |
Guilherme Freire | Blue (100B Tier) | Unknown | Ambiguous | No company information |
Yinlin Fu | Blue (100B Tier) | Etsy | Public Company | E-commerce marketplace (NASDAQ: ETSY) |
Mike Gozzo | Blue (100B Tier) | Ada | AI Startup / Scale-up | AI customer service automation |
Andrew Guck | Blue (100B Tier) | Target | Public Company | Major retail chain (NYSE: TGT) |
Caleb Hicks | Blue (100B Tier) | SchoolAI | AI Startup | AI for education |
Daniel Hoske | Blue (100B Tier) | Cresta | AI Startup / Scale-up | AI for contact centers |
Shawn Jansepar | Blue (100B Tier) | Khan Academy | Non-profit | Educational non-profit |
Ethan Kinnan | Blue (100B Tier) | Lindy | AI Startup | AI personal assistant |
Ivan Korrienko | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | McKinsey | Traditional Enterprise | Major management consulting firm |
Kevin Kuo | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Oracle | Public Company | Major enterprise software company (NYSE: ORCL) |
Gina Lee | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Lennar | Public Company | Major homebuilder (NYSE: LEN) |
June Lee | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Unknown | Ambiguous | No company information |
Luc Levesque | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Shopify | Public Company | E-commerce platform (NYSE: SHOP) |
Thomas Mann | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Trafigura | Traditional Enterprise | Major commodity trading company |
Alex Mashrabov | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Higgsfield AI | AI Startup | AI video generation |
Emi Mathew | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Veritas | Traditional Enterprise | Data management/backup software |
Harikrishna Menon | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Netflix | Public Company | Major streaming service (NASDAQ: NFLX) |
Sassun Saky | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Synthflow | AI Startup | AI voice agents platform |
Bashir Mohammed | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | EASYPAY | Startup | Mobile payment system |
Jaden Moy | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Unknown | Ambiguous | No company information |
Chandhu Nair | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Lowe's | Public Company | Major home improvement retailer (NYSE: LOW) |
Jack Nam | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | TeamForm | Startup | Team building/collaboration platform |
Elle O Hill | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | UC Berkeley | Educational Institution | University |
Matt Palmer | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Unknown | Ambiguous | No company information |
Thavidu Ranatunga | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Yelp | Public Company | Local business review platform (NYSE: YELP) |
Kelley Robinson | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Human Rights Campaign | Non-profit | LGBTQ+ advocacy organization |
Christina Silveira | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | ACTenviro | Traditional Company | Environmental services |
Tao Song | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Pfizer | Public Company | Major pharmaceutical company (NYSE: PFE) |
Arnas Stasulis | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | AI Startup | AI workflow automation | |
Tony Stoyanov | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | EliseAI | AI Startup / Scale-up | AI for property management |
Shahriar Tajbakhsh | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Metaview | AI Startup | AI for recruiting/interviews |
Sarah Toussaint | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Republic Services | Public Company | Waste management company (NYSE: RSG) |
Patrick Wagstrom | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Thomson Reuters | Public Company | Information services (NYSE: TRI) |
John Wood | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Unknown | Ambiguous | No company information |
Gabby Nelson | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | APCO Worldwide | Traditional Enterprise | Global consulting/communications firm |
Brian Westphal | Red/Orange (10B Tier) | Samsara | Public Company | IoT platform for operations (NYSE: IOT) |
Distribution & Concentration
The allocation to different categories is pretty balanced with public companies or unicorns at 34.8% and AI startups at 32.3%. Major tech companies are well-represented: NVIDIA, Adobe, Oracle, Shopify, Netflix, Target. Financial services companies include Citi, UBS, Stripe, and fintech players like Upstart. Duolingo and Notion are one of the biggest consumers in the new age internet companies category.
AgentKit & the Automation Stack Invasion
Along with the new Apps, OpenAI also announced:
Agent Builder - A visual canvas for multi-agent workflows
ChatKit - An embedded chat interface with customisation of branding, etc.
Connectory Registry - A place for admins to manage tools and connections across OpenAI products.
Evals - way to upload datasets for testing and automated prompt optimisation.
While there are a lot of people that feel that OpenAI is taking aim at Lindy, n8n and other node based workflow builders, there are some important distinctions between them.
OpenAI’s focus seems to be in the arena that they play an excellent game on - chat fist experiences with slick interfaces and interactions. In case you have ever built one of these apps you’ll know the challenges with streaming tokens and tool calls. ChatGPT solves this out of the box for you.
You can build your own chatbot, customize the front end and have it hooked up to a workflow planner where you can configure the flow of actions and tool calls based on different scenarios.
It is missing a comprehensive trigger system that most automation platforms have which can be run manually or via webhooks.
The only way you can trigger a workflow is via a chatbot.
So this feels like a way to create an advances ChatGPT like chatbot that can trigger tools and external services with customized logical flows.
References
OpenAI DevDay 2025 Official Page
https://openai.com/devday/Announcing DevDay 2025
https://openai.com/index/announcing-devday-2025/Introducing AgentKit
https://openai.com/index/introducing-agentkit/Apps in ChatGPT SDK Announcement
https://openai.com/devday/ (Apps SDK section)OpenAI launches AgentKit to help developers build and ship AI agents
https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/06/openai-launches-agentkit-to-help-developers-build-and-ship-ai-agents/OpenAI launches apps inside of ChatGPT
https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/06/openai-launches-apps-inside-of-chatgpt/Sam Altman says ChatGPT has hit 800M weekly active users
https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/06/sam-altman-says-chatgpt-has-hit-800m-weekly-active-users/OpenAI DevDay 2025: Live updates and analysis
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/06/open-ai-devday-live-updates-altman-jony-ive.htmlOpenAI is gearing up to release Agent Builder during DevDay
https://www.testingcatalog.com/openai-prepares-to-release-agent-builder-during-devday-on-october-6/
FAQs: OpenAI Dev Day 2025 - Apps, AgentKit & the Token Economy
General Questions
Q: What did OpenAI announce at Dev Day?
A: Three main things:
Apps on ChatGPT - native app integrations within ChatGPT
AgentKit & ChatKit - developer tools for building agents and chat interfaces
GPT-5 Pro & Sora 2 via API - their latest models available through the API
Q: When was Dev Day 2025?
A: October 6, 2025 in San Francisco.
Apps on ChatGPT
Q: Didn't OpenAI already try this with the plugin store?
A: Yep. The plugin store didn't quite work out—had issues with adoption and the capabilities were pretty brittle. This is round 2, building on top of an MCP-like ecosystem to give developers more control over the frontend experience.
Q: Which apps are launching on ChatGPT?
A: So far we've seen Figma, Canva, and Zillow. The real opportunity is for transactional B2C companies like Uber, DoorDash, and Instacart (hello Fidji, new Apps CEO, old Instacart CEO).
Q: What types of apps actually make sense on ChatGPT?
A: B2C apps with simple, transactional flows. I can't imagine someone trying to chat their way through designing a poster on Canva, so the use cases they picked were a bit off. But ordering food, booking a ride, making a reservation? Those could work well with ChatGPT's distribution.
The Token Economy
Q: What's this token economy data OpenAI shared?
A: OpenAI revealed how much their developers are using, broken into tiers:
Tier 1: 1 Trillion+ tokens
Tier 2: 100B tokens
Tier 3: 10B tokens
This is really interesting because it helps us understand the $3Bn in spend expected in 2025, which is about 20-30% of OpenAI's revenue.
Q: Who's consuming the most tokens?
A: Pretty balanced distribution across categories:
34.8%: Public companies and unicorns (NVIDIA, Adobe, Oracle, Shopify, Netflix, Target)
32.3%: AI startups
Financial services (Citi, UBS, Stripe, Upstart)
New age internet companies (Duolingo and Notion are some of the biggest consumers)
AgentKit & ChatKit
Q: What exactly is AgentKit?
A: It's a toolkit with four components:
Agent Builder - visual canvas for multi-agent workflows
ChatKit - embeddable chat interface you can customize
Connector Registry - place for admins to manage tools and connections
Evals - upload datasets for testing and automated prompt optimization
Q: Is this OpenAI taking aim at Zapier and n8n?
A: A lot of people feel that way, but there are important distinctions. OpenAI's focus seems to be in the arena where they play an excellent game—chat-first experiences with slick interfaces and interactions. If you've ever built one of these apps, you'll know the challenges with streaming tokens and tool calls. ChatKit solves this out of the box for you.
Q: What's the big limitation vs traditional automation platforms?
A: It's missing a comprehensive trigger system that most automation platforms have, which can be run manually or via webhooks. The only way you can trigger a workflow is via a chatbot.
Technical Stuff
Q: What's MCP?
A: Model Context Protocol—an open standard that lets apps connect with AI systems. It's what OpenAI is building on top of for this new apps ecosystem, giving developers more control over the frontend via ChatGPT.
Q: Can I use Agent Builder like Zapier?
A: Not really. You can build your own chatbot, customize the front end, and have it hooked up to a workflow planner where you can configure the flow of actions and tool calls based on different scenarios. But without proper triggers, it's not a replacement for traditional workflow automation.