Madiha Yaqoob
OpenAI used its DevDay 2026 keynote in San Francisco on September 29 to turn ChatGPT from a chat window into something closer to an app store. The company moved its Agents API into public beta with computer use support, opened an OpenAI Marketplace where outside software plugs into the assistant, and gave developers a way to publish plugins that show up inside conversations used by what OpenAI says are 1.2 billion people every week.
The headline product from the same event, an always-on agent called dots, and the cheaper GPT-6.1 Sol model already got coverage here. What got less attention is the part that matters more for anyone who builds software for a living: OpenAI is now asking outside developers, not just its 32 launch partners, to treat ChatGPT as a distribution channel.
What actually shipped
The Agents API now supports computer use, letting an agent operate software through its interface rather than through a narrow set of pre-built tools. OpenAI folded in capabilities it built for Codex, its coding agent, including tool search, tool calling, and context compaction, and says it runs the underlying infrastructure so developers do not have to manage servers for long-running agents. A separate Decisions API, built on OpenAI’s Luna model, answers narrow classification questions such as routing a support ticket or flagging content, and is in limited preview.
Alongside the APIs, OpenAI opened plugin extensions, which let a developer give their plugin a spot in ChatGPT’s sidebar and build interactive panels that sit next to the conversation. A companion feature called shareable profiles lets a developer showcase the plugins and Sites they have built so other users can find and reuse them. Both are available to all ChatGPT plans, not gated behind an enterprise contract.
The Marketplace is enterprise money, not consumer discovery
The part of the announcement that made headlines, the OpenAI Marketplace, is narrower than it sounds. Eligible enterprise customers can apply part of their existing OpenAI spending commitment toward 32 launch partners including Adobe, Figma, Salesforce, Harvey, and CrowdStrike, according to OpenAI’s own DevDay recap. That is a procurement tool for large companies, not a storefront an independent developer can list a product on.
The lane that is actually open to individual builders is the plugin and profile system. A freelance developer who builds a useful ChatGPT plugin today can submit it through a redesigned submission flow and get surfaced through improved ranking and recommendations inside the directory and in conversations, per OpenAI. It is a far smaller audience than the Marketplace’s enterprise partners get, but it is the entry point that does not require a partnership deal.
Why this is worth watching from Pakistan and the Gulf
Freelance platforms built around fixed-scope gigs have been shrinking. A separate measurement of Pakistan’s gig economy found freelancers make up a minority of the country’s online workers, with most earning through content, selling, and services rather than traditional freelance contracts, as beingguru reported in September. Building and maintaining a plugin or an agent for a niche audience is a different kind of income stream than bidding on gigs, and it is one OpenAI is now actively recruiting outside developers to build, at a moment when the traditional freelance gig supply is not growing the way it used to.
The catch is discovery. OpenAI controls ranking inside its own directory and inside ChatGPT conversations, the same way Apple controls the App Store and Amazon controls its marketplace search results. A developer who builds a plugin is building on someone else’s platform, with someone else’s algorithm deciding who finds it. That trade-off is not new to anyone who has sold through Fiverr or Upwork. It is simply arriving in a new venue, one with thirty times the user base of either.
