OpenAI has rolled out group chats inside ChatGPT, allowing up to 20 people to collaborate with the model in a shared conversation. What began as a simple consumer-focused feature for planning dinners, trips, or daily tasks now has broader implications: it offers teams a structured way to brainstorm, review content, and coordinate work with AI present as a flexible, optional contributor.
Instead of ChatGPT acting only as a one-on-one assistant, group chats introduce a shared surface where teams can think, plan, and create together.
How Group Chats Function
Users start a group chat by tapping the people icon in the app. ChatGPT creates a shared space based on the current conversation, and participants can join through an invite link. Each person sets a name, username, and profile image so messages stay clear and identifiable.
ChatGPT participates only when appropriate, and will stay silent unless someone mentions it directly. It can also react with emojis and generate personalized images using participants’ profile photos. A built-in settings panel lets users add or remove participants, mute notifications, or give ChatGPT custom instructions specific to that group.
Importantly, the model does not store or use memories from personal chats inside group discussions, and it will not create new memories from group chat activity. Group chats run on GPT-5.1 Auto, which selects the best model for each prompt while applying rate limits only to ChatGPT’s own responses.
Why Group Chats Matter for Workplace Collaboration
While the public-facing pitch highlights casual coordination, the feature has clear potential for business use. Many of the slowest parts of teamwork—alignment, feedback loops, onboarding, and creative review—stem from scattered communication. Group chats place everything in one evolving conversation with AI able to support whenever needed.
Aligning Cross-Functional Teams
Early project stages often involve ideas getting buried across email threads, messaging apps, and documents. In a group chat, anyone can jump in, share context, ask questions, or catch up easily. ChatGPT can summarise discussions, highlight unresolved issues, and turn the conversation into a structured plan. This keeps teams aligned as projects shift from brainstorming to execution.
Improving Review Cycles
Draft reviews can slow down when feedback arrives in different formats and channels. Group chats allow everyone to react to the same draft in real time. ChatGPT can rewrite sections, compare options, or clarify vague comments. This reduces version confusion and speeds up work for teams handling frequent updates or tight timelines.
Faster Onboarding for New Members
New teammates often have to dig through old files, messages, and notes to understand a project’s history. Instead, a manager can add them to an existing group chat and ask ChatGPT to summarise key decisions, open tasks, and major milestones. This reduces onboarding time and helps newcomers become productive sooner.
Coordinating Recurring Tasks
Workshops, customer emails, and internal events often get slowed down by extended back-and-forth communication. In a group chat, anyone can ask ChatGPT to create schedules, draft messages, prepare checklists, or compare options. Teams can refine the outputs together in one place.
Managing Creative Feedback
Creative projects slow down when feedback is scattered or contradictory. Group chats consolidate all input, and ChatGPT can organise comments into themes, identify conflicts, and propose updated drafts. This streamlines revisions and keeps creative teams aligned on direction.
A Step Toward AI-Supported Teamwork
Group chats arrive at a time when many organizations are experimenting with integrating AI into daily work. ChatGPT already helps individuals draft, summarise, and ideate; adding a shared environment extends those capabilities to teams. It doesn’t replace human coordination, but it offers a simpler way to centralize ideas, reduce friction, and keep momentum in projects involving many contributors.
As companies continue to look for ways to reduce context switching, speed up communication, and unlock smoother collaboration, ChatGPT group chats may become an important tool for streamlining early-stage planning, reviews, and ongoing teamwork.
