OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says ChatGPT has moved beyond being a Google alternative. Instead, the platform is increasingly focused on helping users complete complex tasks and workflows.
Speaking at Y Combinator, Altman described how ChatGPT has changed over time.
“For a long time ChatGPT was like a Google replacement… it still felt like a more advanced version of search.”
Now, he said, users can ask the AI to perform complex work like a junior employee.
“You can really give a task to code interpreter for example or to deep research… and come back to you with like a proposal.”
This shift signals a new direction for ChatGPT that could affect how businesses and marketers use AI.
Not Just Search Anymore
Altman emphasized that ChatGPT is no longer just about retrieving information. The goal now is to help users get work done.
Altman said:
“It’s like a very junior employee that can work on something for like a short period of time.”
While the platform gets considerable traffic, Altman said ChatGPT.com is now the fifth most visited site in the world, he downplayed the idea that it’s competing with Google Search.
Instead, OpenAI is building a tool that can connect to user data, complete tasks, and act proactively.
Memory & Persistent AI Assistants
A step toward this vision is ChatGPT’s memory feature. Altman called it his favorite feature so far this year.
This lets the AI remember previous conversations and user preferences, acting more like a personal assistant than a chatbot.
“I think memory is the first time where people can sort of see that coming.”
Altman described a future where the assistant knows when to notify users and when to take action automatically.
Reasoning & Workflow Automation
New models like GPT-4o and O3 are designed to handle more complex reasoning and workflows.
“Right now we’re in an interesting time where the product overhang relative to what the models are capable of is here…”
Altman said the technology is moving faster than most businesses can adapt to it. He sees untapped potential in how AI could support work like marketing, data analysis, and content development.
Balancing the Vision
While Altman outlined an ambitious vision, there’s reason to be cautious.
Tools like ChatGPT face limitations like hallucinated outputs, lack of persistent memory across all contexts, and occasional reasoning failures. This is all detailed in OpenAI’s own reports.
That means, even with tools like Code Interpreter or GPT-4o, complex tasks still require hands-on oversight.
The shift away from search competition may also reflect the difficulty of challenging Google’s market dominance. Instead, OpenAI may be trying to define a new space for AI-powered task automation.
Looking Ahead
As AI tools like ChatGPT gain new features, they may change how marketers, developers, and everyday users complete tasks.
However, much of this vision depends on overcoming current limitations and delivering reliable performance across different use cases.
Altman shared that ChatGPT will soon support the Model Context Protocol (MCP). This allows it to pull data directly from tools and platforms businesses already use.
These integrations further support ChatGPT’s positioning as an assistant platform rather than a search engine alternative.
For now, marketers should focus on utilizing AI tools alongside, not instead of, traditional platforms like search engines. The two can serve different purposes in the same strategy.
Listen to the full interview with Sam Altman below:
