Welcome to the forefront of conversational AI as we explore the fascinating world of AI chatbots in our dedicated blog series. Discover the latest advancements, applications, and strategies that propel the evolution of chatbot technology. From enhancing customer interactions to streamlining business processes, these articles delve into the innovative ways artificial intelligence is shaping the landscape of automated conversational agents. Whether you’re a business owner, developer, or simply intrigued by the future of interactive technology, join us on this journey to unravel the transformative power and endless possibilities of AI chatbots.
OpenAI will discontinue ChatGPT Classic on January 30, 2027. Users who are still using the old desktop app have been seeing a notification upon launch since November 2 that directs them to the new ChatGPT desktop app. Your previous chats won’t be lost; they’ll be transferred to the new app along with your account. At the same time, OpenAI has announced via email that it will merge the “Chat” and “Work” sections into a single interface in the new app, initially only for a small test group.
Key Points at a Glance
The notification appears directly in the app as a banner. It essentially says: “This app will be discontinued on January 30, 2027. Get the latest features in the new ChatGPT app.” It also notes that your entire chat history will be transferred, and you can pick up right where you left off. Clicking the banner takes you to the ChatGPT download page.
ChatGPT Classic will continue to run until the cutoff date. After that, it’s over—OpenAI has not indicated any plans for an extension. Mac users are particularly affected, as the native Classic app was a macOS program.
The story dates back to July. On July 9, 2026, OpenAI, together with the ChatGPT Work agent, released a completely new ChatGPT desktop app for macOS and Windows. Technically, it evolved from the Codex app and combines three modes: Chat for quick questions, Work for longer tasks with finished outputs such as spreadsheets or presentations, and Codex for developers. The previous native Mac app was renamed ChatGPT Classic at that time.
According to the release notes at the time, Classic was supposed to continue receiving model updates, bug fixes, and security patches, while new agent features would be exclusive to the new app. In practice, things didn’t go as planned. Newer features, such as the ability to select different reasoning levels in the reasoning models, no longer worked properly in Classic; on the OpenAI forum, users complained about the model selection repeatedly defaulting back to “Auto.” The app was no longer being actively maintained. As early as January 2026, OpenAI had removed the voice mode from the Mac app—in hindsight, an early warning sign.
The technical shift was a particular source of frustration. Instead of a lean, native app, Mac users were given an Electron package. John Gruber of Daring Fireball did the math: The old app came in at around 159 MB, while the new one was about 1.5 GB. On top of that, the interface was so confusing at first that even OpenAI President Greg Brockman described it at the end of July as “kind of a mess”—in other words, pretty chaotic.
There’s no rush. You have just under three months, and you don’t need to export your chats because they’re tied to your account, not the app. Still, it makes sense to install the new ChatGPT desktop app beforehand and run through your usual workflows. That way, you’ll notice in time if anything is missing.
Two issues currently causing frustration in the community:
If the Electron app feels too heavy for you, you can still use the web interface at chatgpt.com. You can also pin it to the Dock in Safari or Chrome as a standalone web app. It’s not a full-fledged replacement for a native app, but it’s sufficient for simple chatting.
The second piece of news today concerns the new app itself. In an email to users, OpenAI announced that it will be testing a combined “Chat and Work” interface in the coming weeks, initially with a small group. The goal is to let you stay in a single window from the initial idea to the finished result: integrate files and plugins, have ChatGPT build a website or create a presentation, and watch it work as it does so. According to OpenAI, Codex will remain a separate section within the desktop app.
This comes as no surprise. Brockman had already announced in July that the Work tab would be phased out by the end of the year. In early October, Thibault Sottiaux, who is responsible for ChatGPT and Codex at OpenAI, confirmed on Lenny Rachitsky’s podcast that Chat and Work would be merged. The reasoning: Users appreciate Work’s capabilities but often turn to Chat because it’s faster and more convenient. The separation makes the app more complicated than necessary.
Incidentally, Anthropic has already taken this path and merged Claude’s Chat and Cowork into a single interface in September. Anyone who keeps an eye on OpenAI’s AI agents recognizes the pattern: first a separate mode, then it migrates to the main interface. Most recently, OpenAI followed up with GPT-6.1 Terra, its own model for computer use in Work and Codex, and the tests in which ChatGPT Work learns your writing style from Gmail, Slack, and Notion also show where things are headed.
With this restructuring, OpenAI is also changing its billing model. Starting in December, ChatGPT and Codex will draw from a shared usage quota instead of having separate limits. A notice to this effect had already appeared on ChatGPT’s checkout page. Currently, Work and Codex already share a single quota, while regular chats run separately.
OpenAI promises that most users won’t have to wait for a reset any more frequently than before. How much a chat consumes depends on the model and the task: more powerful models and complex tasks use up more of the quota. The Instant model remains unlimited and doesn’t count toward the quota at all.
This is precisely the sticking point that has been sparking debate for weeks. Codex users report that their quotas are running out unusually quickly, as reported by Cryptopolitan, among others. On Reddit, related threads are garnering hundreds of upvotes, and some are openly asking whether the Plus subscription is still worth it. Sottiaux has rejected allegations that OpenAI secretly changed the calculation. On October 29, the company also doubled the Work and Codex quotas for the Pro plans priced at $100 and $500. However, specific figures for the new combined limit are still unavailable.
It had been foreseeable since July that ChatGPT Classic would disappear. Maintaining two desktop apps in parallel—one of which no longer receives new features—makes no sense for OpenAI. Nevertheless, the criticism of the switch to Electron is justified: A chat client that takes up about ten times as much space as its predecessor is hard to justify on the Mac, especially for a company with OpenAI’s resources.
On the other hand, I consider the merger of Chat and Work to be the right move. The current division is confusing, as OpenAI itself has admitted. The shared quota is where things get more interesting. When an in-depth conversation with a reasoning model suddenly starts eating into the Codex budget, developers who use both intensively will notice it most of all. As long as OpenAI doesn’t provide concrete figures, the promise that nothing will change for most users remains just that—a promise. For Mac users of ChatGPT Classic, the plan through the end of January is to install the new app, test it, and provide feedback as needed while OpenAI continues to fine-tune it. To find out what else has changed with ChatGPT, read our article on GPT-6 and the new Intelligent UI.
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