Adobe Photoshop, Spotify, Canva, Zillow and other well-known digital tools are now apps within ChatGPT. OpenAI has launched an app platform two months after announcing the beta feature and rolling out a development kit. 

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On Dec. 17, OpenAI announced that developers could submit their apps and a day later, apps began to appear in the desktop version of ChatGPT, the wildly popular chatbot with more than 800 million active users. It's unclear how soon it will show up in the mobile ChatGPT app. In CNET's testing, it wasn't yet available on iOS.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET's parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

How to use apps in ChatGPT

The apps, at least at launch, are categorized as "Featured," "Lifestyle" and "Productivity," with descriptions that will look familiar to anyone who's used the Apple App Store or the Google Play store. 

You can also use search to find a specific app that may not be listed under those categories.

Many of the apps include screenshots with prompt examples that suggest how to use the app within the chatbot. Canva, for instance, includes the prompt example, "@canva create a 2025 wrap presentation for my class."

Instead of downloading an app, you'll click a "Connect" button to give ChatGPT access to it. From there, you can use an @ prompt to access that app's features.  

Interestingly, you can't just ask ChatGPT what apps are connected if you forget -- instead, you need to go to Settings, Connected Apps or to Settings, then Data Controls, then Connected Apps depending on which version of ChatGPT you're using.