If GPT-4 is like your brain, the addition of plugins is like giving your brain access to a credit card, your business apps, and a news subscription. For those of us that have been watching this space closely, it feels like Pandora's box opening.

The launch of ChatGPT Plugins is a new feature that enables users to customize and extend the AI's capabilities. By utilizing plugins, you can now access an extensive collection of pre-built modules which can be mixed and matched to create a tailored AI experience. These plugins range from simple tasks such as making dinner reservations, to more complex tasks like financial analysis and interacting with business applications.

The introduction of ChatGPT Plugins is significant as it empowers users to tailor the AI experience to their specific needs, making it more effective in catering to various professional and personal use-cases. Additionally, by inviting developers to create and share plugins, OpenAI is aiming to foster innovation and creativity within the AI community. This democratization of AI capabilities will not only lead to increased adoption of the technology but also accelerate the development of novel applications, benefiting users across various industries and fields.

Here are the first eleven 3rd party plugins that were announced on March 23, 2023:

1. Zapier - connect and interact with Zapier's 5,000+ apps

2. OpenTable - research your dinner plans and make reservations from within ChatGPT

3. Kayak - use AI to search for rental cars and flights

4. Expedia - plan your travel 

5. FiscalNote - get real time market data

6. Instacart - order your groceries from within ChatGPT

7. Klarna Shopping - price comparisons using ChatGPT

8. Milo Family AI - parenting assistant

9. Shop - search through millions of products from the world's leading brands

10. Speak - seamlessly access language tutoring 

11. Wolfram Alpha - get Wolfram Alpha's computational superpowers

In addition to these 3rd party plugins, OpenAI also launched two of its own ChatGPT plugins:

- a web browser plugin - fills in a vital gap in ChatGPTs knowledge base, which until now has been mostly limited to information that was indexed before September 2021. See an early review of the browser plugin here.

- a code interpreter - a versatile tool that could revolutionize the way we work with code. The demos have been impressive.

It will be interesting to see how quickly more plugins are added to ChatGPT. These are the first players in what could potentially become a sprawling marketplace.

Read the full OpenAI announcement: Introducing ChatGPT Plugins