ChatGPT plugins
In plain wordsAdd-ons, launched in 2023 and retired in 2024, that let ChatGPT use outside services — web browsing, a code runner, travel booking or shopping sites — while answering a user.
A short-lived extension system for ChatGPT in which third parties exposed web APIs to the model by publishing a manifest file and an OpenAPI description; the model read the natural-language descriptions, decided when to call an API and worked the results into its replies. OpenAI also shipped first-party plugins for web browsing (a text-only browser using the Bing search API) and for code executioncode execution, n.: Letting an AI write a small program and actually run it — to do math, analyze a spreadsheet or test its own code — then use the real output instead of guessing. (Code Interpreter, a sandboxed Python interpreter later renamed Advanced Data Analysis), and released code for a self-hosted retrieval plugin. Plugins were the first mass-market deployment of LLM tool usetool use, n.: An AI model's ability to reach beyond its own knowledge by operating outside tools — searching the web, running code, using a calculator or an app — and folding the results into its work. and exposed its problems early: unreliable tool selection, poor discoverability among hundreds of plugins, and indirect prompt injectionindirect prompt injection, n.: A prompt-injection attack in which the trick instructions are hidden in content the AI reads on its own — a web page, an email, a file — rather than typed by the person using it. through content that plugins returned. They were superseded by custom GPTs with 'actions' (November 2023) and wound down in 2024.
Before custom GPTs arrived, a plugin was the only way to connect ChatGPT to a third-party service.
Origin
Announced by OpenAI on 23 March 2023 as a limited alpha, with launch partners Expedia, FiscalNote, Instacart, KAYAK, Klarna, Milo, OpenTable, Shopify, Slack, Speak, Wolfram and Zapier. New plugin conversations were disabled in March 2024, and existing ones could no longer be continued after 9 April 2024.
Usage note
Not to be confused with plugins for coding agentscoding agent, n.: An AI agent that writes and fixes software by itself: it reads a codebase, edits files, runs commands and tests, and keeps working until a feature is built or a bug is fixed. (2025 onward), which bundle skills, hookshook, n.: A user-supplied script or check that runs automatically at set moments in an AI agent's work — before a command, after a file edit, when it tries to stop — enforcing rules the AI cannot skip., subagents and MCP servers for tools such as Claude CodeClaude Code, prop. n.: A coding assistant from Anthropic that works as an agent: given a programming task, it explores the project, changes the code and runs programs to check its work, from the web, a desktop app, an editor or a terminal..
Related
- tool usetool use, n.: An AI model's ability to reach beyond its own knowledge by operating outside tools — searching the web, running code, using a calculator or an app — and folding the results into its work.
- function callingfunction calling, n.: A feature of AI model services that lets the model reply with a neatly formatted request to run one of a program's functions, rather than with ordinary text; the program, not the model, then runs it.
- Model Context ProtocolModel Context Protocol, prop. n.: An open standard that lets AI assistants plug into outside apps and data — files, calendars, databases, business software — through one common connector instead of a custom link for every pairing; often likened to a USB-C port for AI.
- indirect prompt injectionindirect prompt injection, n.: A prompt-injection attack in which the trick instructions are hidden in content the AI reads on its own — a web page, an email, a file — rather than typed by the person using it.
- ChatGPTChatGPT, prop. n.: OpenAI's AI chatbot, released free to the public in November 2022, which answers questions, writes and converses in everyday language. Its sudden popularity began the current AI boom.
- code executioncode execution, n.: Letting an AI write a small program and actually run it — to do math, analyze a spreadsheet or test its own code — then use the real output instead of guessing.
Sources
- OpenAI (2023). ChatGPT plugins. OpenAI blog, 23 March 2023. openai.com/index/chatgpt-plugins
- OpenAI Help Center. Winding down the ChatGPT plugins beta. help.openai.com/en/articles/8988022-winding-down-the-chatgpt-plugins-beta
Mentioned in
tooltool, n.: Any outside capability an AI model is allowed to use — a web search, a calculator, a code runner, a database or an app — described to the model so it can ask for it by name.