Nathaniel Whittemore

Now, not everyone is sold on the idea of a super app.

David Geoghegan writes, Super app usually means we couldn't find the next big thing, so we're bundling everything we have.

Hedgy Markets, which you can guess their focus from their handle, certainly thinks this is about the IPO as well.

The overhaul, they write, shifts resources towards enterprise clients with 2 million businesses already at 40% of revenue and expected to hit 50% by year end.

Altman said last year that apps would become obsolete because of AI, and now he wants to build a super app.

900 million people use ChatGPT every week, 50 million pay for it, and OpenAI still loses $14 billion a year.

The super app is supposed to change that.

OpenAI has shifted hard towards enterprise with 2 million businesses already at 40% of revenue, and a target of 50% by December, but those are the same enterprise customers who discovered last week what AI tools cost and whether they produce anything.

Putting the slightly cynical take even more bluntly, nobody builds a super app because users ask for one.

They build it because a chatbot is hard to put a multiple on.

This is a feature for the S1, not for you.

Now one other take which I don't think is exactly right but does deserve some discussion is summed up by Yoshik who writes, one thing I've learned from tech, the best technology doesn't always win.

The company that owns the user usually does.

That's why OpenAI is trying to turn ChatGPT into a super app before the IPO.

Every model eventually gets copied.

Getting millions of people to open your app every day is the hard part.

Although on the flip side, Anand thinks that consumers might be in for a shock with these changes.

They write, It's going to be interesting to watch how casual ChatGPT users react to this.

Most people have only used it as a chatbot.

A full redesign into SuperApp is going to feel like a completely different product to them.