Zillow and Expedia were among the first companies to launch apps inside OpenAI’s ChatGPT this week, securing early positions in what analysts are already calling the potential “Windows of AI.”
The move puts the iconic Seattle brands in a new ecosystem with more than 800 million weekly users, making them part of what one report called the AI “super app” of the future.
But past platform shifts raise a key question: Are these companies booking a seat on a rocket ship, or are they ceding control to a new gatekeeper that could one day put its own interests first?
OpenAI announced the new app platform at its annual DevDay in San Francisco, saying that developers can now build full-fledged applications within ChatGPT using a new software development kit, or SDK. The idea is to create a new category of conversational apps that work directly in the chat flow, including interactive features accessible in ChatGPT.
During a live demo, for example, an engineer prompted Canva to create a poster for a dog-walking business and later asked Zillow to show homes for sale in Pittsburgh, which generated an interactive map from the real estate site inside the chat.
“Zillow is the only real estate app available in ChatGPT,” the company crowed in a news release. “Zillow worked with OpenAI as one of the first partners to build an app in ChatGPT, underscoring its trusted brand, scale and track record of turning technology breakthroughs into consumer-first innovations.”
Expedia’s new ChatGPT app, announced in conjunction with the OpenAI platform launch, will allow users to plan trips by asking for flights and hotels directly in the chat.
The apps handle the discovery and planning phases within ChatGPT, handing users off to the partner sites to take the final steps, like booking a room or scheduling a home tour.
OpenAI framed the new Apps SDK as a full-stack platform for developers, offering tools to connect data, trigger actions, and present interactive interfaces directly inside ChatGPT.
CEO Sam Altman said the goal is to “help developers rapidly scale products” by reaching hundreds of millions of users — a message that echoed the early days of mobile app stores and hinted at OpenAI’s ambitions to create a new operating system for the AI era.
But that ambition is already raising bigger questions about potential trade-offs.
In his Platformer newsletter, Casey Newton compared OpenAI’s ambitions to Facebook’s troubled “social graph,” warning that the “AI graph may prove even riskier” to digital privacy given that ChatGPT stores users’ most private conversations.
Newton also asked whether long-term economic incentives — i.e., will OpenAI auction off app placement in the future? — could eventually warp the user experience at the cost of ChatGPT’s usefulness.
In The Information‘s nightly briefing, Martin Peers questioned whether app developers have a real incentive to participate if it means diminishing their direct traffic and their ability to sell ads.
As it related to the specific integrations, however, much of the reaction was positive.
On the Vendor Alley real estate technology blog, Greg Robertson recalled Zillow (and Expedia) co-founder Rich Barton mentioning that having Zillow’s app featured in Apple keynotes was a big boost, both for attracting the attention of consumers and for internal morale at Zillow.
Referencing the applause that followed OpenAI’s Zillow demo, Robertson wrote, “That’s the sound of Zillow winning the real estate AI race. Everyone else is now playing catch up.”
