ChatGPT launched group chat functionality globally to all users on Free, Go, Plus, and Pro subscription plans, OpenAI announced Thursday, expanding a feature that transforms the artificial intelligence assistant from a one-on-one conversational tool into a collaborative platform where multiple users can interact with each other and the AI simultaneously.
The global rollout comes one week after the company began piloting the feature in select regions including Japan and New Zealand, a limited release that allowed OpenAI to test functionality and gather feedback before broader deployment.
The group chat feature allows users to collaborate with each other and ChatGPT within a single shared conversation thread. OpenAI characterises the launch as transforming ChatGPT from a one-on-one assistant into a collaborative space where friends, family members, or colleagues can work together to plan activities, create content, and make decisions with AI assistance integrated into group discussions.
OpenAI envisions multiple use cases for group chats in ChatGPT, including coordinating travel plans where participants can discuss destinations whilst ChatGPT researches options and compares prices, co-writing documents with multiple authors contributing ideas whilst the AI assists with drafting and editing, settling debates by having ChatGPT provide factual information to inform discussions, or working through research projects collaboratively with AI helping to summarise sources and synthesise information.
Up to 20 people can participate in a single group chat, provided they have accepted an invitation to join the conversation. Personal settings and memory remain private to each individual user despite the shared conversation environment, OpenAI indicates, addressing potential privacy concerns about whether ChatGPT’s memory of interactions with one user might leak into responses to other participants.
To initiate a group chat, users tap the people icon within the ChatGPT interface and add participants, either by selecting them directly from contacts or by sharing an invitation link that others can use to join. All participants are prompted to create a brief profile including their name, username, and photo, allowing ChatGPT and other users to identify who is speaking within the conversation.
Notably, adding someone to an existing chat conversation creates an entirely new conversation thread rather than simply adding the person to the ongoing discussion. This design choice means the original chat remains unchanged and private amongst its initial participants, whilst a new group conversation begins that includes the additional person.
OpenAI indicates that ChatGPT has been designed to understand when to contribute to group conversations and when to remain silent, avoiding the problem of an AI assistant interjecting constantly and overwhelming human discussion. Users can tag “ChatGPT” using the @ mention syntax to explicitly request a response when they want the AI to contribute information or assistance. Additionally, ChatGPT can react to messages using emoji responses and can reference participants’ profile photos, features that help the AI engage more naturally in group conversations.
The group chat launch represents OpenAI’s latest move in transforming ChatGPT from a simple question-and-answer chatbot into something more resembling a social platform or collaborative workspace. OpenAI characterises group chats as merely the beginning of ChatGPT evolving into a collaborative environment rather than remaining solely a single-player experience where one user interacts with AI in isolation.
“Over time, we see ChatGPT playing a more active role in real group conversations, helping people plan, create, and take action together,” the company wrote, suggesting future developments may make the AI an even more integrated participant in group discussions rather than simply a tool that responds when explicitly prompted.
Thursday’s announcement arrives less than two weeks after OpenAI launched GPT-5.1, which featured both Instant and Thinking versions of the underlying language model. In September, OpenAI launched a social application called Sora, where users can generate videos of themselves and their friends to share on a TikTok-style algorithmic feed, another indication of the company’s interest in social and collaborative features beyond traditional chatbot interactions.
The move into group chat functionality positions ChatGPT more directly in competition with collaborative platforms including Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Chat, though with the distinctive addition of an AI assistant participating in conversations. It also reflects broader industry trends toward integrating AI capabilities into communication and collaboration tools rather than keeping AI assistants as separate applications users must switch to when they need assistance.
