OpenAI presented two important tools for building AI agents at its developer conference. AgentKit is designed to simplify the development of AI agents via a no-code builder, while Apps in ChatGPT makes it possible to integrate external applications directly into the ChatGPT interface.
The OpenAI developer conference demonstrates that the company behind ChatGPT is maintaining a steady pace of innovation. OpenAI is making one interesting announcement after another. Earlier, it introduced the Sora app, an investment in AMD, and its ambitions in the business market. Now, two essential expansions within the OpenAI platform are following.
AgentKit lets anyone build AI agents with no code
According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, AgentKit is a visual tool for quickly building AI agents. “AgentKit is a complete set of building blocks available in the OpenAI platform designed to help you take agents from prototype to production. It is everything you need to build, deploy, and optimize agent workflows.”
He further states that AI is becoming increasingly capable, from a system you can ask anything to a system that can do everything for you. According to Altman, there is a lot of talk about AI agents, but they remain underutilized. He wants to solve that with AgentKit.
No-code
AgentKit should enable developers and business users to build agents without any programming knowledge. The platform supports standard integrations with services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft Teams. Additionally, support is available for external Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, enabling integration with virtually all known applications and data sources. MCP is becoming a standard that almost everyone supports or will support.
According to OpenAI, AgentKit has the necessary guardrails for building AI agents. For example, a detection system is in place to prevent sensitive personal data from being leaked. Other standard OpenAI security measures are also active in the background to ensure that AI agents and underlying prompts fall within acceptable policies. The creation of ransomware or other criminal activities should be blocked.
ChatKit
Organizations that want to use these self-built no-code AI agents can use OpenAI ChatKit. ChatKit is a JavaScript implementation that allows you to quickly integrate AI agents into existing web applications.
Apps in ChatGPT with SDK for developers
One of the other big announcements is Apps in ChatGPT. Developers can use the open source Apps SDK to build external applications that integrate directly into ChatGPT. The SDK builds on Anthropic’s MCP protocol. It is actually more of an extension of it.
For example, Apps in ChatGPT allow you to integrate Spotify and ask it to create a playlist in a specific music genre. Or use the Booking.com integration to plan a road trip and quickly find and book hotels along the route. There are already a dozen applications available within ChatGPT, but more will undoubtedly follow soon.
OpenAI also aims to make all available applications transparently visible to users. OpenAI will introduce a directory or App Store in the near future.
There is also some bad news about Apps in ChatGPT. For the time being, these applications are only available to ChatGPT users outside the EU. Apparently, OpenAI still anticipates some challenges arising from strict European regulations. European users will therefore have to be patient until the EU also gains access to Apps in ChatGPT.