• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, January 5, 2024

OpenAI plans to launch its GPT app store during the week of CES 2024, January 9-12.

The company announced the app store during its first annual developer conference in November when it said it would open in late November. But the plans changed, likely because of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's abrupt departure and return at the start of the holidays.

The app store will give users the ability to find GPTs from “verified builders” through a searchable interface.

The timing of the store's opening comes from a memo to developers viewed by The Information.

The biggest opportunity in building GPT apps is that no coding experience is required, making it easier for marketers to use the technology for just about any topic with the ability to respond to conversational queries.

OpenAI’s GPT app store would allow its customers to share and sell chatbots customized for different purposes, such as health guidance.

Justin Freid, chief media and innovation officer at CMI Media Group, which supports the health care industry, believes AI will become a critical tool and change the behavior of people who use the internet and mobile apps.

“The two main interfaces are search engines for information and social media to get support from piers,” Freid says. “We are starting to see preexisting online interfaces to ask questions built on ChatGPT and Google Gemini. People are starting to trust them as a source of information.”

AI also could be used by companies to answer consumer questions.

“You may go to a pharmaceutical brand website to interact with a GPT that’s powered by a large language model (LLM),” he said. “We’re seeing a significant shift in behavior to answer information to answer health questions.”

OpenAI does not have a monetization strategy for its GPT app store, but data from Wells Fargo published in Time magazine estimates “Google will get about $10.3 billion in revenue from app sales and in-app purchases from the Play Store in 2023.”

The analyst estimated that for “every 5 points that the PlayStore fee rate decreases, Google loses about $1.3 billion in operating income or 9 cents of earnings per share.

Sensor Tower research estimates global consumer spending on premium apps, in-app purchases, and subscriptions will reach $233 billion across Apple’s App Store and Google Play by 2026.

This year, Sensor Tower data estimated Apple App Store will reach $124 billion -- up from $108 billion in 2023 -- and Google Play store to reach $58 billion, up from $51 billion in 2023.