Via gizmodo.com
OpenAI's group chat feature lets up to 20 people collaborate with AI while keeping personal conversations completely separate.
OpenAI has rolled out group chat functionality for ChatGPT, turning what has always been a solo experience into something closer to a shared workspace. The feature, which launched on November 13, 2025, lets users invite up to 20 people into a single ChatGPT conversation, complete with invite links and a privacy architecture designed to keep your personal chats firmly walled off from the group.
How the feature works #
The group chat system supports participants across Free, Go, Plus, and Pro subscription tiers. Users can generate shareable invite links to bring others into a conversation, with a cap of 20 people per chat.
Personal memories, the contextual information ChatGPT accumulates from your private conversations to personalize responses, stay completely isolated from shared sessions. Your group collaborators won’t inadvertently trigger responses informed by your private individual interactions.
Early signs of the functionality appeared in the ChatGPT Android app as far back as October 2025, with code references to group chat capabilities and private side chats surfacing in app teardowns. The global rollout followed quickly, expanding worldwide by November 20, just a week after the initial launch.
From solo tool to collaborative platform #
Since ChatGPT’s debut in late 2022, the product has been fundamentally a one-on-one experience. Adding multi-user functionality represents a meaningful shift in how OpenAI envisions its flagship product being used.
Google has been weaving its Gemini AI into Workspace products for team-oriented tasks, and Microsoft’s Copilot has focused heavily on collaborative enterprise scenarios. ChatGPT’s group chat feature is OpenAI’s most direct answer to the question of how a consumer-facing AI product competes in the collaboration space.
A feature with an expiration date #
OpenAI began phasing out the feature on July 9, 2026, disabling the ability to create new group chats or join existing ones. Chat history remained accessible initially, but the feature itself was effectively sunsetted less than eight months after launch.
Updates in August 2026 focused on UI improvements rather than new feature introductions, pointing toward a strategic recalibration that prioritizes refining the core product experience.
The private side chat functionality, which allows participants in a group conversation to break off into separate AI interactions without leaving the group context, added another layer to the collaboration model.
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