How OpenAI Is Building A SuperApp With GPT 5
While many power users felt underwhelmed by the GPT-5 release, a closer look reveals a strategic play aimed at ChatGPT's massive and rapidly growing free user base of over 700 million. This update wasn't for the pros; it was about laying the groundwork to monetize the majority and transform ChatGPT into a new kind of internet giant.
Analysts focusing solely on model capabilities are missing the bigger picture. In less than a year, ChatGPT has rocketed into the top 5 most visited websites, surpassing giants like X/Twitter, Reddit, and Wikipedia. It's quickly catching up to the likes of Instagram and YouTube. The key difference is that ChatGPT's immense audience remains largely unmonetized, a situation that the GPT-5 update is designed to change.
The Router: The Real Star of the Show
The most significant part of the GPT-5 announcement wasn't a new capability but a new system: the router. As described on OpenAI’s release website, this intelligent router is the core of their new strategy.
GPT‑5 is a unified system with a smart, efficient model that answers most questions, a deeper reasoning model (GPT‑5 thinking) for harder problems, and a real‑time router that quickly decides which to use based on conversation type, complexity, tool needs, and your explicit intent. The router is continuously trained on real signals... improving over time.
This router is a game-changer. On the cost side, it directs simple queries to smaller, cheaper models, drastically reducing operational expenses. On the performance side, it gives free users access to more powerful, "thinking" models for complex questions—a feature previously reserved for paying subscribers. This alone is a massive upgrade for the average user, with engagement from free users on thinking models reportedly jumping 7x on the first day.
But the true potential is unlocked by adding one more attribute for the router to consider: the commercial value of a query. This system is the foundation for monetizing ChatGPT's free user base.
Paving the Way for Monetization
Centralizing the user experience through the router opens up numerous monetization paths. The strategy becomes clear with the May hiring of Fidji Simo as CEO of Applications. Simo, a former Facebook VP, has a reputation as a monetization expert, having been instrumental in rolling out key ad products for Facebook. Her arrival at the fastest-growing unmonetized web property is a clear signal of intent.
CEO Sam Altman's own views have also evolved. A year ago, he was famously dismissive of advertising:
“I will disclose as a personal bias I hate ads... I kind of think of ads as a last resort as a business model.”
More recently, his tone has shifted. In a recent podcast, he showed he is actively considering a transactional or affiliate model:
“...maybe if you click on something in there that is going to be there we’d show anyway, we’ll get a bit of transaction revenue and it’s a flat thing for everything, maybe that could work.”
The interviewer's enthusiastic response about wanting to do all their purchasing through ChatGPT highlights the direction OpenAI is heading. The router, by understanding user intent, can now distinguish between a simple informational query and a high-value commercial one.
Agentic Purchasing: The Future of Consumer AI
This new model upends traditional internet economics. Ben Thompson's "Aggregation Theory" was built on the idea that internet services had zero marginal cost for an additional user. LLMs and agents change this entirely. Now, spending more compute can yield a better, more detailed answer.
Consider two queries:
- Informational: “Why is the sky blue?”
- Commercial: “What is the best DUI lawyer near me?”
The router can send the first query to a cheap model. For the second, a highly valuable query, ChatGPT could dynamically allocate significant compute resources—say, $50 worth—to provide an exceptional, agentic response. It could research local lawyers, check availability, consider your budget, and even contact them on your behalf. This is possible because the potential transaction is worth thousands of dollars.
This isn't just for high-end services. It could apply to booking flights, ordering groceries, or finding the best internet plan. The user gets a helpful assistant for free, while the business pays a referral fee for a high-quality lead. This aligns with Altman’s vision of a non-intrusive business model. Hints of this are already in the GPT-5 release notes, which highlight integrations with Gmail and Google Calendar and new benchmarks for tool use in retail and airline industries.
This isn't speculation. Instacart already allows agents to check out products, a feature implemented while Fidji Simo was there. The wheels are in motion.
From Vision to Reality: The Path to a SuperApp
This agentic future won't happen overnight. It will begin with affiliate fees and evolve through deep partnerships. OpenAI has already laid the groundwork by partnering with key players across different sectors:
- Finance: Stripe, Visa, PayPal
- Consumer: Mattel, Booking.com, Lowe’s
- Internet: Shopify, Instacart, Mercari
Companies will eagerly adopt this new channel to lower customer acquisition costs, collapsing the entire marketing and sales funnel into a single, helpful interaction with an AI assistant.
The Dawn of a Consumer SuperApp
OpenAI has achieved web-scale presence, and now, with the router, it has the tool to monetize it. This isn't just about competing with Google Search; it's about replacing a large part of the advertising and e-commerce ecosystem. By moving directly into agentic purchasing, OpenAI is firing a shot across the bow of Google, Meta, and Amazon.
In a world where user growth for tech incumbents is stagnating, OpenAI is the only one growing at a staggering rate. By bypassing the traditional ad funnel, it is creating a new, powerful space for consumer purchasing.
While we are still far from this fully realized future, the introduction of the router is the critical first step. It enables the dynamic sorting of queries by complexity and, eventually, by commercial intent. With this, OpenAI is no longer just building a chatbot; it's building an agent to help users with one of their most important daily activities: buying stuff.
