OpenAI takes on Microsoft and Google with office productivity push
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ChatGPT’s new Pages app lets users create, edit, and share documents as AI assistants expand into everyday office work.
OpenAI takes on Microsoft and Google with office productivity push
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ChatGPT’s new Pages app lets users create, edit, and share documents as AI assistants expand into everyday office work.
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Credit: OpenAI
OpenAI unveiled its long-rumored productivity software suite Tuesday with the launch of Pages, a collaborative document editor for ChatGPT. A slides app is also on the way, the company announced at its DevDay event.
The Pages app is accessed via a new Space tab, which OpenAI describes as a “new home for your team to collaborate with AI to get work done.” Users can store documents and other uploaded files, as well as create and share pages, slides, and spreadsheet documents. Space replaces the Library in ChatGPT, but the Projects tab will remain as a way to organize chats and files.
The announcement puts OpenAI into direct competition with incumbent office productivity software providers, such as Microsoft, Google, and Notion.
“Spaces and Pages broaden the competitive overlap, because ChatGPT is moving beyond being primarily an individual assistant towards becoming a place where work can be retained, organized, and shared with colleagues,” said Maria Bell, senior research analyst at FDM CCS Insight.
“That brings it closer to the collaboration layer of Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Notion, rather than simply competing with the AI assistants inside those platforms.”
“OpenAI is trying to become a more user-centric environment that focuses on everyday workloads for productivity,” said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates. “To that extent it is competing with Microsoft, Google, and others, as well as other AI companies that want to move towards a more full-time, ‘on my desktop environment’ that is enhanced with AI capabilities.”
With its productivity tools, OpenAI is trying to make its AI assistant “more sticky so it can generate more revenue,” he said. But while OpenAI and its competitors see AI-naive productivity tools as the next “greenfield” opportunity to go after, “it won’t be easy displacing entrenched users with Office or Google Workspace,” he said.
“I don’t see companies transitioning to new productivity suites easily. It’s a major lift to do so, and most are looking to add on to their existing capabilities rather than rip and replace,” said Gold.
What is ChatGPT Pages?
OpenAI describes Pages as a “new type of document, built for human and agent collaboration.” The document editor has a streamlined interface similar to Notion. Content such as headings, paragraphs, and tables are organized into blocks. Also similar to Notion is the ability to create sub-pages within a page and link to an existing page.
When a user selects text on a page, a floating toolbar appears, with options such as bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, as well as the block style (heading, list, checklist, quote, and so on). Users can then comment on selected text for collaborators to view, or ask ChatGPT to make revisions.
The embedded AI assistant can generate text and other content such as images and interactive visualizations. “Prompt” blocks allow authors to embed suggested prompts for document readers to run, to help explore their work, according to OpenAI.
Multiple users can collaborate on a single document, making edits and generating content via their own AI assistant. Collaborative document access raises potential permission concerns when users create content based on files they can individually access. ChatGPT has more information on permissions and other data sharing controls on its help center site.
Users can also connect to other content repositories, such as Google Drive, according to OpenAI’s documentation.
Space and Pages are available to ChatGPT Pro, Business, and Enterprise customers, on the web and in the ChatGPT desktop app. On mobile devices, users can read and share pages, but editing is not supported.
Computerworld asked OpenAI for further clarification on pricing for business customers, and did not receive a reply at time of writing.
AI assistants evolving into productivity suites
OpenAI’s announcement comes as Microsoft and Anthropic also build office productivity tools into their respective AI assistants.
Last week, Anthropic announced that it has built a rich text editor into Claude alongside a tool for creating presentation slides (both are currently available in beta). Microsoft’s Copilot overhaul last Friday also included the ability to create and edit a range of Office documents from within the Copilot app.
These are all signs of AI assistants becoming more central to how office work gets done. Gartner predicts that spending on enterprise AI assistants will rise from $17 billion in 2025 to $71bn in 2030, while knowledge workers are forecast to spend more time interacting with these tools in their daily work than with any other application over the next three years.
ChatGPT collaborative slides are “coming soon,” OpenAI announced at its DevDay event Tuesday.OpenAI
For OpenAI to succeed as a hub for collaborative work, it needs to convince not individuals but teams of employees to adopt its productivity tools. “A user can adopt ChatGPT for drafting or research on their own, but shared documents depend on colleagues using the same environment, agreeing how work is organized, and trusting it as a common workspace,” Bell said.
That gives the incumbents a significant advantage, she said. “Microsoft, Google, and Notion already sit inside established team workflows, with years of shared content, permissions, collaboration habits, and enterprise processes built around them. OpenAI is therefore not just asking users to try a new feature; it is asking teams to consider whether ChatGPT can become part of their shared working environment…That is a higher bar.”
Office SuitesProductivity SoftwareGenerative AIArtificial IntelligenceCollaboration Software
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