Desk Reports:
ChatGPT Launches Group Chats Globally for All Users, Shifting to Collaborative Platform
Hey everyone, have you heard the huge news? ChatGPT is officially launching group chats globally! Honestly, this is a massive change, and it’s rolling out to everyone—doesn’t matter if you’re on the Free, Go, Plus, or Pro plan. OpenAI announced it on Thursday, just a week after they started testing the waters in select places like Japan and New Zealand.
The coolest part is what this feature actually does. It lets you, your friends, family, or even co-workers jump into one shared conversation with ChatGPT. The company basically says they’re turning ChatGPT from just a simple, one-on-one assistant into a space where you can all collaborate. Think planning that big trip, co-writing a work document, settling one of those endless debates, or just working through some tough research together. ChatGPT is there to summarize, search things, and compare options right alongside you.
Surprisingly, up to 20 people can be in one group chat, as long as they accept your invite. And don’t worry, your personal settings and memory stay totally private to you, which is a relief, right?
Starting one is super easy: you just tap the little people icon and add participants directly or share a link. Everyone who joins needs to set up a quick profile with their name, username, and a photo. Oh, and here’s a quick tip: adding someone to a chat that already exists creates a brand new conversation, so your original chat history stays untouched. That’s a thoughtful little detail, I think.
OpenAI claims ChatGPT is smart enough to know when to jump in and—crucially—when to stay quiet. If you need its help, you just tag “ChatGPT” to get it to respond. Plus, it can react to messages with fun emojis and even reference the profile photos!
In reality, this whole move marks the latest step in OpenAI’s plan to turn ChatGPT from just a plain chatbot into something much closer to a social or collaborative platform. They wrote in an email to TechCrunch that group chats are “just the beginning“ of ChatGPT becoming a collaborative environment, not just a single-player experience. “Over time, we see ChatGPT playing a more active role in real group conversations, helping people plan, create, and take action together,” they said.
This big announcement landed less than two weeks after they dropped GPT-5.1, which had those new Instant and Thinking versions of the model. And remember back in September? They launched that wild social app called Sora for generating and sharing TikTok-style videos. Honestly, OpenAI is moving at warp speed!
