What is a ChatGPT plugin?

Written by Ricky Nave in Business Ideas, Opportunities, and Risks,Software Engineering & Development

A ChatGPT plugin is essentially an app that people can use within the normal ChatGPT interface. In particular, a ChatGPT plugin is an API with a manifest.json file that is registered with OpenAI. Plugins can allow ChatGPT to access up-to-date or personal information as well as use third-party software services. Here are some examples of things plugins could be created to do:

  • Access the current top 5 stories on CNN’s website
  • Get a list of all events on a ChatGPT user’s Google Calendar for today
  • Add shampoo to your Amazon cart
  • Get the current stock price for Microsoft
  • Get a list of the 5 cheapest “Entire place” Airbnb listings in Miami
  • Run a web search for a particular topic and return the text of the first informational page returned in the search results
  • Send an email
  • Check and summarize any unopened emails in a ChatGPT user’s inbox
  • Check what time it is
  • Check the weather in a given city

ChatGPT plugins are currently in alpha testing. OpenAI has created three native plugins:

  • A web browsing plugin that allows ChatGPT to search the internet in real time
  • A code interpreter plugin that allows ChatGPT to run python code (including code to generate plots and graphics)
  • A document repository search plugin that allows ChatGPT to search a private repository of notes/documents

Additionally, several companies have partnered with OpenAI to produce plugins that are currently available to in alpha testing:

  • Expedia
  • Instacart
  • OpenTable
  • Zapier
  • Wolfram Alpha
  • Klarna Shopping
  • Kayak.com
  • FiscalNote
  • Speak.com
  • Shopify

If you want to build your own plugin, you can build your API now but you’ll have to join OpenAI’s waitlist to register it as a ChatGPT plugin.

NOTE: According to OpenAI rules, any plugin that distributes personal communications (e.g. a plugin to send emails) must indicate in those communications that the content was generated by AI.

What are some ChatGPT plugin business ideas?

  1. A plugin to post Tweets and Twitter threads.
  2. A plugin to publish blog posts on WordPress sites.
  3. A plugin to do image searches on the web.
  4. A plugin that allows ChatGPT to make changes to Google Sheets or Excel spreadsheets.
  5. A plugin that allows ChatGPT to write book chapters in a Google Doc.
  6. A plugin to execute transactions on Ethereum.
  7. A plugin to manage a Google calendar.

References

[1] OpenAI announcement: ChatGPT plugins

[2] ChatGPT plugins developer documentation

[3] ChatGPT Plugin Terms (Legal)

Ricky Nave

In college, Ricky studied physics & math, won a prestigious research competition hosted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, started several small businesses including an energy chewing gum business and a computer repair business, and graduated with a thesis in algebraic topology. After graduating, Ricky attended grad school at Duke University in the mathematics PhD program where he worked on quantum algorithms & non-Euclidean geometry models for flexible proteins. He also worked in cybersecurity at Los Alamos during this time before eventually dropping out of grad school to join a startup working on formal semantic modeling for legal documents. Finally, he left that startup to start his own in the finance & crypto space. Now, he helps entrepreneurs pay less capital gains tax.

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