OpenAI Rolls Out Group Chat Feature in Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan

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OpenAI Rolls Out Group Chat Feature in Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan 

OpenAI is testing new waters with the introduction of group chats in ChatGPT, marking another step in its evolution from AI assistant to social collaboration platform.

The feature launched Thursday in four pilot regions: Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan. Available to Free, Plus, and Team users on both mobile and web, the new capability allows up to 20 people to collaborate in AI-assisted conversations.

Getting started is straightforward. Users can tap the people icon to create a group and add participants directly or via shareable link. ChatGPT joins these conversations powered by GPT-5.1 Auto, bringing its full toolkit including web search, image generation, file uploads, and dictation. The AI has been trained with new social awareness, knowing when to contribute and when to let humans take the lead. Users can tag “ChatGPT” to prompt a response, and the assistant can even react with emojis or generate personalized images using participants’ profile photos.

OpenAI emphasizes that individual chats and personal ChatGPT memory remain completely private. Groups are invitation-only, and members can leave anytime. Most participants can remove others, though group creators can only exit voluntarily. For users under 18, content filtering and parental controls add extra protection. Importantly, usage limits only apply to AI responses, human-to-human messages don’t count toward hourly caps.

This launch follows OpenAI’s September debut of Sora 2, a standalone social media app featuring AI-generated video sharing with TikTok-style feeds. Together, these moves signal OpenAI’s ambitions to build not just powerful AI tools, but social platforms around them. The company describes group chats as a “small first step” toward a more collaborative ChatGPT experience. Feedback from pilot users will guide the feature’s expansion to additional regions and subscription tiers.