OpenAI is restructuring ChatGPT into a 'super app'—an AI agent that handles personal and professional tasks—under new product leader Thibault Sottiaux, betting the shift will reinvigorate growth as it races toward an IPO.

What happened: OpenAI appointed Thibault Sottiaux as head of core products overseeing ChatGPT and Codex, with a mandate to merge them into a single AI agent. The company has already shut down standalone products including its video app Sora and an AI platform for scientists. Sottiaux says ChatGPT will become "delightfully proactive" and serve as the "world's best personal agent that deeply understands what humans care about."

Why it matters: ChatGPT has nearly a billion weekly active users, and OpenAI is betting this transformation will restore competitive advantage against Google and Anthropic while supporting its path to an IPO. Earlier attempts to launch web-navigating agents like Operator never gained significant adoption, but Sottiaux claims the underlying technology is now reliable enough to make the vision work at scale.

What to watch: OpenAI plans to merge Codex into ChatGPT in the coming weeks and has announced an expanded partnership with Visa for agentic payments. Sottiaux says the super app will launch "soon" but declined to give a specific date, noting the company prefers a series of small releases to gather feedback as it goes.