Windows Finally Gets the Official ChatGPT App

An unfinished “early version” of the ChatGPT desktop app is now available on Windows. It requires a ChatGPT Plus, Enterprise, Team, or Edu membership, though OpenAI will provide access to free users in a future update.

OpenAI’s official ChatGPT desktop app landed on macOS about five months ago. It has received several updates since then, including support for Voice Mode and the latest GPT-4o model.

Voice Mode is absent from this “early version” of the ChatGPT Windows app. That said, most of the functionality that we enjoy on macOS has been carried over. You can pull up a Spotlight-like ChatGPT prompt window with the Alt+Space keyboard shortcut, upload files and photos for AI analysis, sync conversations with your OpenAI account, and tap into DALL-E for image generation.

Unlike the macOS app, which requires a new Apple Silicon machine running macOS 14 or later, ChatGPT for Windows has some very modest system requirements. You just need Windows 10 version 17763.0 or higher.

As for why you might use the ChatGPT app instead of Windows’ built-in Copilot AI—well, it’s mostly a question of personal preference. ChatGPT and Copilot tap into the same set of LLMs, but Copilot is inundated by Microsoft integrations that can be extremely useful or extremely annoying, depending on your workflow.

Note that ChatGPT’s default Alt+Space keyboard shortcut is utilized by other apps, including PowerToys. If an app on your computer conflicts with ChatGPT’s keyboard shortcut, you’ll need to jump into both apps’ settings and make some adjustments. You can probably assign ChatGPT to the Copilot key on a newer Windows laptop, but I haven’t tested this theory yet, so don’t take it to heart.

You can download the ChatGPT Windows app from the Microsoft Store or the OpenAI Downloads page (which redirects to the Microsoft Store). To reiterate, the ChatGPT Windows app currently requires a ChatGPT Plus, Enterprise, Team, or Edu membership. Free users will gain access before the end of the year, says OpenAI.

Source: OpenAI