OpenAI said at its Dev Day presentation on 29 September 2026 that developers can build app-like experiences inside ChatGPT through plugin extensions, giving third-party software a dedicated place in the sidebar. The company is also adding support for a proposed specification that would let events in connected apps start automations, TechCrunch reported.
Key points
- Plugin extensions give third-party apps a dedicated home in the ChatGPT sidebar.
- Developers can add interactive panels and viewers for files their products support.
- OpenAI is introducing a Plugin Creator tool and changing how plugins enter its directory.
- Support for the proposed MCP Events specification would allow automations to start from activity in a connected app.
Plugin extensions get a ChatGPT sidebar home
ChatGPT already has plugins that connect it to Slack, SharePoint, Airtable and Google Drive. The extension changes where a connected app can appear: OpenAI says developers can give it a dedicated home in the sidebar, rather than relying solely on its appearance during a conversation. That gives the app a persistent place in the interface alongside the chat.
Developers can also build interactive panels in which people work with their tools while continuing to chat with ChatGPT. OpenAI says those panels can contain file viewers for the formats a developer’s product uses. The viewer would bring a file into the same working space as the conversation, rather than requiring the conversation alone to carry the interaction with the connected tool.
Checking a document while asking questions about it could therefore take place in a panel beside the conversation, if the connected product supported that file format and its developer built the viewer. Choosing the plugin would still involve approving its access needs individually, as OpenAI describes for the updated system.
The distinction matters for developers deciding what to build. A plugin that only connects ChatGPT to another service can supply information to a conversation; an extension with a sidebar home and panel can also give that service room for interaction. OpenAI’s announcement covers the interface available to developers, with file support tied to the formats of each developer’s product.
Plugin Creator and ChatGPT Sites extend distribution
OpenAI says its new Plugin Creator tool is intended to make plugins easier to build. Developers can submit them to the plugin directory through a redesigned process that offers clearer feedback. The company also says it has changed how plugins are ranked and recommended in that directory and how they appear during conversations.
Those changes affect both sides of a plugin’s route into ChatGPT: how a developer prepares and submits it, and how someone finds it after submission. When a person chooses a plugin, OpenAI says they can approve its access needs individually. That permission choice sits alongside the company’s changes to recommendations, rather than being left to the act of finding a plugin.
ChatGPT Sites, the lightweight websites people can make with ChatGPT, can host plugins as well. OpenAI gives the example of sharing an app with colleagues who then use it with their own connected data and permissions. In that arrangement, the shared site provides a place for the app, while each person’s connections and permissions govern their use of it.
An existing plugin illustrates the directory’s role. NetDocuments said on 18 September that its ChatGPT plugin had become available through OpenAI’s plugin library, in a Utah Business press release. NetDocuments says the plugin gives access to its legal documents within existing permissions and governance controls. That earlier announcement concerns an existing plugin, rather than a NetDocuments extension using the newly announced panels or sidebar home.
Proposed MCP Events support adds automation triggers
OpenAI is also adding support for the proposed MCP Events specification, which it says would let a plugin begin an automation when an event occurs in a connected app. The trigger is the technical shift: instead of a person starting every interaction by asking ChatGPT to do something, a signal from the connected app could start the automation.
An event works like a doorbell for software. It signals that something has happened in the connected app; support for the proposed specification would allow the plugin to respond by starting an automation. OpenAI describes this as an addition to the plugin system, alongside the panels in which people can work directly with a connected tool.
OpenAI says it is also making automations easier to add and manage. Together with the proposed event support, that would give developers a way to build plugins for work initiated inside a connected app as well as for interactions begun in ChatGPT.
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