OpenAI finally launched ChatGPT desktop app. Will it challenge Microsoft's Copilot?

OpenAI has finally launched a ChatGPT desktop app, its one-stop app that brings the popular AI chatbot to your desktop. Announced during the “Spring Update” live stream event on Monday, the Microsoft-backed company said that the app will boast a “refreshed UI,” besides the mobile app that’s already available.

The update “feels magic” to Altman, and that’s not baseless at all. OpenAI’s CTO Mira Murati demo-es that the new ChatGPT desktop app will have the Voice mode that’s been exclusive for mobile users for quite some time.

“We’re rolling out the macOS app to Plus users starting today, and we will make it more broadly available in the coming weeks. We also plan to launch a Windows version later this year,” OpenAI says in the official announcement.

The question now, though, will it challenge Microsoft Copilot? Microsoft has poured billions of dollars into OpenAI for years and even uses its model for Copilot. The Redmond company wants the AI assistant tool to be a universal experience for Windows 11 and 10 users, but with the ChatGPT desktop app coming, competition may be getting fiery.

Besides, the Microsoft-backed company also launched its yet “best model ever,” the GPT-4o, and its API. The new flagship model is natively multimodal and is rolling out for folks in both free and ChatGPT Plus paid subscribers, and is rolling out “over the next few weeks.” It can speak to you better than the voice assistant that’s already around.

Rumors on the street have been one thing: OpenAI was set to launch a “ChatGPT search engine.” That honestly does sound like a good idea, even though we do have something similar with Microsoft’s Copilot or even Google Gemini (formerly known as Bard). But, still, being the maker of the GPT-4 model, OpenAI’s ChatGPT does have an upper hand if it decides to launch a search engine. 

The rumors said that the search engine would be launched on Monday, May 13, but OpenAI’s bosses Sam Altman and Greg Brockman quickly refuted the idea. When announcing the Spring Update live stream event, these OpenAI’s higher-ups said explicitly that it won’t be a search engine or a GPT-5, but rather an update to ChatGPT and GPT-4.