OpenAI, the company behind the leading artificial intelligence technology, has just announced the beginning of a new era that will finally bring chats… to ChatGPT. This functionality not only integrates artificial intelligence into a collective, social conversation, but also transforms it into an active and collaborative member of the work team. The days of copying and pasting texts between personal chats and WhatsApp groups are over. It appears that, at last, ChatGPT will truly have a chat in the social sense of the word.
OpenAI has started rolling out this new feature in select regions (initially Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan) that allows users of all ChatGPT plans to add other individuals to a shared conversation. This new experience is designed to facilitate planning, decision-making, and collaborative work on ideas with friends, family, or coworkers.
The use cases demonstrate how artificial intelligence can be integrated into our social and professional lives, moving from being an individual tool to a collective asset. For instance, in the social arena, it can be used to organize a group dinner, compare destinations for a weekend trip, or build a shared itinerary. In creative projects, it may collaborate with your partner or roommates on garden design or in brainstorming art ideas.
Looking at the examples of use provided by the company itself, it seems that this feature is primarily aimed at supporting collective decision-making, such as finding a restaurant that meets everyone’s preferences, or even using ChatGPT as a “neutral arbitrator” in a friendly debate. Finally, in work or study settings, the tool could be used to draft documents, research a new topic as a group, or ask artificial intelligence to summarize and organize the information shared by all group members.
The major innovation is not only the possibility of adding people, but rather the way that ChatGPT interacts with the group. According to OpenAI, the artificial intelligence has been trained in “advanced social behaviors” to ensure that its participation is helpful and not intrusive. It is able to follow the flow of the conversation and decide when to respond and when to remain silent according to the group’s context, which already places it ahead of many individuals in terms of intelligence.
(And naturally, to guarantee an immediate response, you will always be able to mention ChatGPT directly within a message.)
Technically, these chats are powered by GPT-5.1 Auto, a system that selects the most appropriate available model to respond. Enabled interactions include search, file and image uploads, image generation, and dictation. In addition, artificial intelligence can react to messages with emojis, bringing the interaction even closer to what you might experience in a WhatsApp group chat.
In fact, it may go even further by using the profile photos of members to create customized images within that conversation. Group creators have complete control to set custom instructions regarding ChatGPT’s tone or personality specifically for that chat, ensuring it adapts to the group environment.
One of the greatest concerns when sharing a space with artificial intelligence is privacy, and OpenAI has addressed this with strict measures. Group chats will be completely separate from your private and personal conversations. The company explains that the personal memory ChatGPT has developed about you will never be used in group chats, and the artificial intelligence will not create new “memories” based on these collective conversations.
In general, it appears that control will remain in the hands of the user. You must accept an invitation to join a group, and everyone will be able to see who is in the chat and leave at any time. Group creators may manage the settings, name the chat, add or remove people, and establish custom rules. To protect younger users, if anyone under the age of 18 participates in group chats, ChatGPT will automatically reduce exposure to sensitive content for all participants. Furthermore, parents or guardians will have the option to fully disable this feature through parental controls.
ChatGPT’s goal is to learn from the limited launch of this new feature so that soon, users in other markets will also be able to access these group chat functions.
Image: ChatGPT
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