OpenAI tells developers ChatGPT is ready to be their gatekeeper (www.theregister.com)

At OpenAI DevDay 2025, CEO Sam Altman pushed a developer-first strategy, unveiling an Apps SDK, AgentKit, expanded Evals, the general availability of Codex, the GPT‑5 Pro API, and a small real‑time voice model (gpt‑realtime‑mini). Altman framed these moves as ways to turn ChatGPT from a playground into a platform that routes real user traffic to third‑party apps — today OpenAI says 4 million developers build on its stack and ChatGPT reaches 800 million weekly users — while also stressing the need to grow revenue amid heavy operating losses. Technically, the Apps SDK lets apps register metadata so ChatGPT can discover and invoke them via natural language (think Android Intents for the chat era), but integration requires running an MCP server and user consent to connect; that makes ChatGPT a powerful distribution gatekeeper with attendant commercial and platform‑control implications. AgentKit bundles Agent Builder (visual flowcharting), Connector Registry (admin panel and prebuilt connectors for Dropbox, GDrive, SharePoint, Teams), and ChatKit to accelerate agentic workflows that loop models with tools and data. Added Evals aim to improve model testing and safety, while Codex GA, GPT‑5 Pro, and gpt‑realtime‑mini target coding, high‑throughput API use, and low‑latency voice respectively. For developers this is a huge opportunity for reach and low‑code automation — but it also raises dependency, monetization and governance questions about who controls app discovery and distribution.