OpenAI has announced significant updates to its popular "ChatGPT" platform, specifically targeting the business and educational sectors.
These additions include innovative connection capabilities with popular cloud storage services, alongside an advanced meeting recording mode, in a clear effort to establish the language model as an indispensable tool in modern work environments.
Connecting ChatGPT with Storage Services via Connectors
According to the company's announcement, "ChatGPT" users can now directly link their accounts to services like Google Drive, Dropbox, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Box.
The "Connectors" feature allows users to search for and retrieve specific information from their files and documents stored on these platforms without having to leave the "ChatGPT" interface.
OpenAI clarified that this integration fully respects the access permissions granted to users within their organizations, with administrators having the ability to control the activation of these links at the workspace level.
As a practical example, the company's statement noted the ability for a researcher to use a "Box" service link to quickly extract quarterly sales metrics from PDF files or spreadsheets saved there.
"ChatGPT" organizes and clearly displays the data, citing sources from those documents.
Record Mode within ChatGPT
In a related development, OpenAI introduced "Record mode" within "ChatGPT," a feature currently exclusive to "Team" plan users.
The new mode offers a service for recording and transcribing meetings, generating clear notes, attaching time-linked citations, and providing AI-powered suggestions.
This allows users to recall past decisions and follow up on actions from saved documents and files, and even convert recorded discussions into actionable items as a "Canvas" document (Canvas), which is "ChatGPT's" interface dedicated to writing and programming.
OpenAI's Efforts to Capture the Enterprise Sector
These new features come as part of OpenAI's diligent efforts to capture a larger share of the AI customer market in the enterprise sector, a sector known for its significant spending.
"ChatGPT Enterprise" was launched in 2023, less than a year after the initial "ChatGPT" release. It attracted prominent clients such as Block, Canva, Estée Lauder companies, and PwC.
This was followed by the launch of "ChatGPT Team" in January 2024, as an option for smaller companies or teams.
Reports indicate that OpenAI now has a base of three million paying business users, up from two million last February.
Furthermore, a preview of deep search links is now available with platforms like Hubspot and Linear, in addition to many popular Microsoft and Google tools.
The company stated that these additions "build on deep search capabilities, an agent that performs multi-step search for complex tasks by gathering, synthesizing, and presenting information from third-party tools and the web."
Availability of the Connection Feature
The new links are currently available to all "Team," "Enterprise," and "Edu" plan users.
Customers can also use the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to connect with other tools for deep search, and MCP support will be available for "Pro," "Team," and "Enterprise" plan users.
In conclusion, it is clear that OpenAI aims through these updates to encourage companies to integrate "ChatGPT" more deeply into their institutional workspaces.
The company appears to be succeeding in this endeavor. While other startups try to build AI-powered office tools offering search and analysis features, OpenAI has the advantage of being a pioneer, especially with an already large enterprise customer base.
This expansion places OpenAI in direct competition with tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Anthropic, all vying to offer generative AI features to enterprise clients in an industry race projected to exceed one trillion dollars in revenue in less than seven years.
