What is a ChatGPT connector for business?
It's a link between ChatGPT and another service that lets ChatGPT read from it or act in it, using the person's own sign-in. OpenAI started calling them connectors and now calls them apps.
Some are ready-made by OpenAI and well-known software companies, for tools such as Google Drive, SharePoint and GitHub. Others are built by businesses for their own systems or their own customers. Either way, the person stays signed in as themselves, and ChatGPT can only do what the app allows.
What's the difference between internal and customer-facing apps?
Who uses it, and what for. Most businesses meet the first kind before the second.
- Internal: your team connects ChatGPT to the tools you already use, so they can find a document, summarise a thread or pull a figure in a chat. Admins on business plans decide which apps are switched on.
- Customer-facing: you build an app for your own service, so anyone using ChatGPT can ask to get a quote, check availability or book, and your system does the work.
- Custom internal: you connect ChatGPT to a system with no ready-made app, such as your own database or booking tool, through a custom MCP connector.
How do ChatGPT apps work?
An app tells ChatGPT what it can do, and ChatGPT uses it when a request fits. Customer apps are built with OpenAI's Apps SDK, which is built on MCP, the open standard for connecting assistants to tools.
In practice: a customer asks ChatGPT about something your app covers. ChatGPT offers to use your app, the customer signs in if needed, your app runs the action in your system and returns the result, and ChatGPT shows it, sometimes with your own interface inside the chat. Anything that changes something, such as a booking, asks the customer to confirm first.
Because it's MCP underneath, the same connector can often serve Claude and other assistants that support the standard. Our MCP guide explains the parts.
How do customers find a business's ChatGPT app?
Through ChatGPT's app directory, and when ChatGPT suggests an app that fits what someone has asked. Developers submit apps to OpenAI for review before they're listed.
Being listed is not the same as being recommended. ChatGPT still has to know your business is a good fit, which is the job of AI SEO: clear facts, listings, reviews and mentions.
Should your business build a ChatGPT app?
If customers could ask for your service in a sentence, and your systems can take the order, it's worth a look. Hire, trades, appointments, retail and B2B suppliers fit well.
If your work needs a long conversation before any price is possible, start with being recommended instead. An app that can't do anything useful on its own won't get used.
How do you plan a ChatGPT app, step by step?
These are the steps we follow before writing any code.
- List the two or three things customers ask for most often in a sentence: a quote, availability, an order status.
- Check your systems can do each one automatically. If not, that layer comes first.
- Write down what each action needs from the customer, and what it returns.
- Decide what needs sign-in, what needs confirmation and what limits apply.
- Build the MCP connector, test it in ChatGPT's developer tools, then in Claude.
- Submit it to OpenAI for review and listing, and list it in other directories where it fits.
- Track how it's used, and fix the requests it can't handle.
Is it safe to connect ChatGPT to business data?
Yes, with the right controls. Apps use the person's own sign-in, so they only see what that person could see anyway. On business plans, admins choose which apps are allowed.
For customer apps, you decide which actions exist and nothing else is reachable. Add confirmations for anything that books or charges, sensible limits and a log of every action. Check OpenAI's current data and privacy terms for your plan.