Jan 29, 2026
Nano Banana Pro prompted by THE DECODER
OpenAI seems ready to pull the plug on ChatGPT Agent, a product that never found its footing since launching six months ago.
The tool peaked at launch with four million weekly active paying users, roughly eleven percent of the 35 million paying subscribers at the time, reports The Information. Within months, that number dropped below one million. Users either couldn't figure out what to do with it or didn't know it existed. Speed, reliability, and cybersecurity issues didn't help.
OpenAI is now betting on specialized agents instead, like the shopping agent for product recommendations, which it calls "Shopping Research." Users understand what these tools are for, and they're more reliable because the product team doesn't have to cram in as many features. It's also an admission that AI models aren't yet great at generalization.
