ChatGPT is taking an interesting step toward becoming more like a “command center” for the services you use every day: OpenAI has started rolling out app integrations that let you connect accounts directly to the assistant, so it doesn’t just answer questions but can also carry out tasks inside familiar platforms. The idea is simple—and pretty appealing if you live among browser tabs, apps, and reminders: instead of jumping from place to place, you ask ChatGPT to search, suggest, or prep actions, and then you finish the process in the relevant app when needed.
That said, before diving in, most people want clarity on two things: how to turn it on and what it means for privacy. Fair enough—who doesn’t like automation, as long as it doesn’t mean giving away more data than necessary?
Getting started: connect apps from chat or from Settings
The setup is designed to be straightforward. First, you’ll need to be signed in to ChatGPT. From there, you have two options. The fastest is to type the app’s name at the start of your prompt; ChatGPT will guide you through signing in and linking your account. It’s a very “do it as you go” approach—ideal when you have a specific task in mind and want to try the integration without digging through menus.
If you’d rather get everything set up in one go, there’s a more organized route: go to Settings and open Apps and Connectors. From there you can browse available apps, pick the ones you want, and complete the sign-in for each on its corresponding page. It’s the kind of setup many of us do once and forget… until one day we’re glad it was already configured.
Either way, there’s one critical point worth treating with a technical mindset: linking an account means sharing data from that app with ChatGPT. OpenAI is clear that you should review the permissions you approve when linking, because the integration may grant access to personal information associated with the service. For instance, if you connect Spotify, ChatGPT could access your playlists, your listening history, and other data. That access is what enables recommendations and personalization—but if your privacy threshold is stricter, you may want to think twice before connecting everything “just because.”
The reassuring part is that you can disconnect any app whenever you want from the settings menu, without jumping through hoops or hunting for hidden options.
What you can do with the available integrations
The initial catalog spans travel, design, learning, shopping, and entertainment, with integrations that make the most sense when the goal is to reduce friction: ask, filter, compare, and get the final action ready. With Booking.com, for example, the integration is built to help travelers—especially those visiting a destination for the first time and looking for practical suggestions. After linking your account, you can ask ChatGPT to find hotels in a city based on dates and budget, and even specify details like the number of guests or proximity to public transport. You can also refine the search with criteria like “breakfast included.” Once you find an option that works, the final step happens by opening the listing in Booking.com to complete the reservation.
In a similar vein, Expedia lets ChatGPT surface hotel and flight options without leaving the chat, tailored to dates, budget, and the number of travelers. The value here is filtering in natural language—asking it to show only 4-star hotels, for instance—and then finishing the purchase in Expedia once you’ve built your shortlist.
For visual creation, Canva works as a quick way to kick off projects: you can request designs for a social media post, a poster, or a 16:9 presentation, including preferences for typography, color palettes, Instagram-style formats or Stories, and specific dimensions. Still, there’s an important nuance: AI-generated designs aren’t always perfect, and you may see distorted images or typos—so it’s more of a “starting point” than a final deliverable. The upside is you can jump into Canva at any time to refine the design and bring it up to the standard you’d expect in a real-world setting.
If you’re more into structuring ideas, Figma focuses on diagrams, flows, and visual representations that turn brainstorms into usable artifacts. It also lets you upload files and ask ChatGPT to generate a product roadmap with milestones, deliverables, and timelines—a practical assist when you need to align a team and priorities without getting lost in endless documents.
On the learning side, Coursera is used to discover courses that match your level: you can ask for an intermediate Python course, for example, and request comparisons by rating, duration, and cost before enrolling, along with a content overview. It’s a convenient way to do the initial scouting without opening ten tabs—which, somehow, always turns into twelve.
For music, Spotify shines with a feature that fits how most people use the service: quickly creating playlists and discovering recommendations tailored to your taste. You can ask for a playlist based on your mood or a list featuring only tracks from your favorite band, and also get suggestions for artists, playlists, audiobooks, or podcast episodes. It also includes direct actions like adding or removing items from your library—the kind of automation you actually notice day to day.
For shopping, Target shows up with a beta integration designed for gift suggestions and fast cart building without leaving ChatGPT—something the company strategically enabled ahead of Black Friday. You can ask for ideas for a “movie night,” get a selection of available products, add them to your cart, and check out with your Target account, choosing options like same-day Drive Up, in-store pickup, or standard shipping.
For getting around, Uber makes it easier to find ride options—especially useful when you’re in a new country and don’t want to waste time manually comparing. You can set it up in the ChatGPT app, but the final request and payment are completed in the Uber app. One caveat: for now, the integration is only available in the United States, it doesn’t allow advance bookings, and it’s limited to on-demand rides, with options like UberX, UberXL, Comfort, and Black. There’s also a Uber Eats integration in the United States to browse restaurants and menus within ChatGPT and complete payment in the Uber Eats app.
For food and ingredient shopping, DoorDash offers an appealing approach to meal planning: you can ask for a menu plan and immediately add the ingredients to your DoorDash cart, then review and pay. Again, there’s a clear limitation: it’s currently available only in the United States and with participating retailers, including Kroger, Safeway, Fairway Market, and Wegmans, among others.
Finally, for housing, Zillow enables a more efficient home search with text-based filters: price range, number of bedrooms, or specific neighborhoods. It’s the kind of experience where natural language speeds up filtering, because it feels more like explaining what you want to someone than filling out forms.
Regional availability—and what’s coming in 2026
Even though the concept sounds global, the current rollout is limited to the United States and Canada, and for now Europe and the UK are left out. Still, it signals a clear direction: ChatGPT as an interface that understands what you want to do and relies on external services to execute it—something that echoes the long-promised “real” digital assistant, just with better conversational judgment and fewer rigid commands (and yes, with more permissions involved).
OpenAI has also said it plans to add more partners, including OpenTable, PayPal, and Walmart, with a release planned for 2026. If that list materializes, the shift from “recommender” to “action manager” could become even more obvious—especially once payments and reservations come into play.
In the meantime, if you want to try it, the key is to choose integrations that genuinely save you time and, above all, to review permissions carefully. Because automation is great… but automating without checking what you’re granting access to is exactly the sort of thing that ends with you digging through settings on a Sunday afternoon.
