OpenAI wants ChatGPT to contribute to your group chats - and I can't decide if that's exciting or creepy (www.techradar.com)

OpenAI is piloting a new group-chat mode for ChatGPT in Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Taiwan that lets up to 20 logged-in users (Free, Go, Plus and Pro) share a single conversation with the assistant. Participants can invite others with a shareable link, create a dedicated group-chat sidebar, mention ChatGPT to summon it or let the model decide when to interject based on conversational context; it can even react with emoji. The feature runs on the GPT-5.1 Auto family and supports search, file uploads, image generation, dictation and per-chat custom instructions, aiming to streamline event planning, brainstorming and collaborative decision-making across distributed teams and social groups. The shift from one-on-one assistants to a shared conversational workspace is significant: it embeds AI directly into multi-person workflows and social interactions, enabling persistent shared context and tailored behavior per group. Technical implications include richer context handling, multi-user instruction arbitration and expanded I/O (files, images, dictation), but also heightened risks around privacy, moderation, and hallucination in group settings. OpenAI frames this as an early pilot to collect feedback before wider rollout, leaving questions about regional rollout strategy, governance, and safeguards as the feature scales.