According to foreign media reports, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, announced the launch of the GPT Store last fall, following the success of ChatGPT. This move aims to emulate the successful collaboration model between Apple's iPhone and developers, attracting third-party developers to leverage OpenAI's technology to create and sell conversational AI applications for ChatGPT users. However, since the launch of the GPT Store four months ago, some developers have expressed disappointment with the lack of users for their chatbot applications and complained about the lack of support from OpenAI in obtaining user analytics data. In addition, the restrictions on non-paying users and the policy of not allowing developers to charge for GPT applications have also sparked dissatisfaction among some developers. Although the launch of the GPT Store seems to come at a time when conversational AI technology is not yet fully mature, OpenAI's other key projects, such as search engines, AI agents, video models like Sora, the development of next-generation language models, and AI chip projects, seem to suggest that the company's focus may not be solely on the GPT Store. In the tech industry, app stores have long been proven to be effective tools for building brand loyalty between developers and users. Internal researchers at OpenAI even believe that large language models have the potential to become operating systems similar to Apple's iOS. This view aligns with Altman's personal investment in the AI device startup Humane, indicating that he may want to replicate Apple's successful model. However, compared to early popular apps on the iPhone, early applications developed for generative AI are often less intuitive, and most people are not yet accustomed to completing tasks such as creating charts and planning trips through chatbots. One of the challenges faced by the GPT Store is that some custom chatbots, such as those providing entrepreneurial advice, can easily be replicated by OpenAI's general chatbots, thereby reducing their market value. In addition, Jake Saper, a partner at venture capital firm Emergence Capital, pointed out that while the Apple App Store has been hugely successful, ChatGPT is still a novelty to many people, and its usage has remained stagnant since May last year. Although the challenges faced by the GPT Store do not pose a direct threat to OpenAI's core business, as the number of paying users for ChatGPT continues to grow and Microsoft continues to sell OpenAI's technology to cloud developers, the slow start of the GPT Store could undoubtedly hinder OpenAI's long-term development. A spokesperson for OpenAI stated that since the launch of the GPT Store, millions of people have interacted with hundreds of thousands of GPT applications, further expanding the positive impact and creative uses of ChatGPT. The company is committed to providing developers with more ways to expand their influence and monetize their creations, and acknowledges that there is still much room for improvement in the GPT Store. In November last year, Altman officially launched the GPT Store at OpenAI's first developer conference and opened it to the public in January this year. So far, developers have created over 3 million custom chatbots for the store, including bots that teach programming skills and help design PowerPoint presentations. OpenAI claims that even people without technical backgrounds can easily develop GPT applications. Developers only need to describe the personality and goals of the chatbot in written form through the GPT Store website, and OpenAI's conversational AI can generate custom chatbots in a short period of time. For more advanced developers, they can also connect chatbots to external data sources or websites. However, developers of the GPT Store, including Oleg Kirilenko from Spain, have stated that despite the rich functionality of the chatbots they have developed, the number of users using them is much lower than expected. According to Demochkin's analysis of over 36,000 custom chatbots, only about 5% of the bots have 150 to 500 active users per day, while most bots only have one to two users visiting per day. Unlike the Apple App Store, the GPT Store provides developers with relatively limited user satisfaction and engagement data. Demochkin also pointed out that OpenAI resets user IDs every 24 hours, making it difficult for developers to effectively track repeat users. As a result, many chatbot developers have had to turn to online forums like Reddit to share and promote their applications and seek user feedback.