What You Need to Know about the GPT Store

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Happy Tuesday, folks.

Back on my feet, refreshed and ready to type until I can press keys no more. Let’s get after it today 😤 

GPT Store Provides More Customization (but for how long?)

OpenAI finally rolled out its GPT Store this past week, making it possible for paying users (gotta keep the lights on) to browse, share, and try user-created personalized AI agents.

The rollout was delayed multiple times since the feature was first announced in November at OpenAI’s Dev Day (something about some employee getting fired/rehired?), but multiple marketplaces have already emerged in the time since to try to replicate the “aggregation” feature that the store attempts to provide.

Even now, 2 of the top 12 most used GPTs are catalogues/databases of thousands of GPTs seeking to help users navigate the admittedly bad store frontpage. Elsewhere, the big hits have been SEO writing tools and coding assistants.

We see a pretty solid mix of companies and solo devs publishing, which tells me two things:

• Companies see GPTs as a strategic marketing tool to provide some value to drive users to their sites for more

• Solo builders are banking on eventual monetization by getting an early start as one of the most-used agents on the marketplace

Compensation details are still unavailable, but given the low-ball licensing offers OpenAI has given to publishers like the NYT, it’s safe to assume that no company is going to make significant money from the GPT Store alone.

Startups can learn a thing from these bigger companies. It wouldn’t hurt to turn some feature into a GPT to give users a taste of what your product can provide. It can also assist in demand gauging by measuring the traffic from organic searches.

Given how time- and resource-constrained early companies are, though, don’t devote too much effort into molding an ill-equipped product into a GPT that isn’t really adding enough value to compensate.

I don’t see the GPT Store as a viable source of revenue for a venture-scale business. Some solo devs will find a nice secondary source of income through a catalogue of well-constructed agents, but the upside is minimal.

Plus, there’s doubt about how successful the Store will be and whether it might be shuttered like plugins not too long ago.

For now, though, building GPTs for marketing (and for internal tasks and functions) seems like a strong value-add for companies looking to leverage AI to level up their efficiency.

Cheers to another day,

Trey