According to PCWorld, OpenAI has confirmed ChatGPT now supports group chats with up to 20 participants after data miners spotted code references back in mid-October. The feature allows families, friends, and coworkers to collaborate on everything from holiday planning to project coordination. Group chats work in both the ChatGPT app and web interface, requiring users to create a profile with name, username, and photo when starting their first group conversation. Interestingly, the feature is currently only available in New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, with both free and paid users having access.
The Regional Rollout Strategy
Here’s the thing about that limited country list – it’s classic OpenAI. They’re testing this in markets that are tech-savvy but relatively contained. Japan and South Korea have massive AI adoption rates, while New Zealand and Taiwan represent smaller, manageable test beds. Basically, if something goes wrong, the blast radius is contained. But it’s frustrating for the rest of us who want to try this feature now. When you’re dealing with group dynamics and multiple users interacting with AI simultaneously, there are bound to be unexpected edge cases.
Privacy and Conversation Management
The private copy feature for existing conversations is smart – it prevents new group members from seeing your previous solo chats with ChatGPT. But I’m skeptical about how well this will work in practice. We’re talking about 20 different people potentially inviting others, creating multiple conversation branches. And let’s be real – how many group chats actually stay organized? Most devolve into chaos. Now add an AI participant that everyone can prompt simultaneously. That sounds like a recipe for confusion, especially when you consider that ChatGPT might struggle with conflicting instructions from multiple users.
Broader Implications
This move positions ChatGPT as more of a collaborative workspace than just a personal assistant. But here’s my question: do we really need another group chat platform? We’ve got Slack, Teams, WhatsApp – and now ChatGPT wants to be in that mix too. The value proposition seems to be the AI facilitation, but I wonder if people will actually use this for serious planning or if it’ll become another digital toy. The success will depend entirely on how well ChatGPT handles the complexity of group dynamics and conflicting requests. We’ll have to wait and see if this becomes genuinely useful or just another feature that sounds better in theory than practice.
