Howdy 👋🏾.

Last week, OpenAI held its annual hybrid conference, DevDay. What started as a product keynote has evolved into a full developer showcase, and this year, it fully embraced that identity.

One of the biggest announcements was the new App SDK, which enables brands to build experiences directly inside ChatGPT. If you’ve followed my past write-ups on RAG or MCP, you know these technologies connect external data sources such as HubSpot or Zillow to ChatGPT. The App SDK takes it a step further; it allows brands to create interactive interfaces that live inside ChatGPT itself.

You can ask Expedia to show you flight prices to New Orleans for Mardi Gras in February, and then start wondering what it would cost to buy a house right on the parade route. Now you can ask ChatGPT to do both, and it will pull live data from Expedia and Zillow, displaying actionable buttons to explore, book, or save listings, all without leaving the chat.

Other major updates included AgentKit, which simplifies building multistep agent workflows, and Sora 2 as an API, which opens the video-generation model to developers.

Sora is impressive. A few days before DevDay, OpenAI launched a standalone iOS Sora app that feels like TikTok for text-to-video. I had early access and, naturally, spent the weekend spamming friends and family with AI-generated clips of me doing ridiculous things.

But Sora is also controversial. Copyright holders have raised alarms about its ability to reproduce protected material, prompting OpenAI to introduce a sweeping new copyright rule requiring creators to verify rights before uploading or using third-party assets. The company is tightening controls, yet public-domain figures remain fair game, which explains the growing feed of AI-generated Michael Jackson, MLK, JFK, and Bob Ross videos.

California is trying to get ahead of this. Lawmakers there passed a bill last year protecting the likeness of deceased performers after a digital AI twin of Marilyn Monroe went viral. The law was meant to prevent exploitation of dead celebrities, but it never envisioned tools like Sora 2, which can generate photo-realistic video of anyone in seconds.

It’s a strange new frontier, but an exciting one to watch unfold.

-jason

---

🎙️Podcast Episode

For this week’s episode of Thoughts on Tech & Things, I sat down with my good friend Ben Slavin, an AI entrepreneur and researcher, to unpack what OpenAI’s DevDay really means. We discussed Sora 2, ChatGPT 5, and how new tools like AgentKit and the App SDK are turning OpenAI from a product company into a platform that powers how data and AI come together.

Listen now and subscribe on Apple or Spotify. If you enjoy it or have ideas for future episodes or guests, I’d love to hear from you. I read every message you send, just hit reply or email me at contact@jasonmperry.com.

---

🔗 The Best in Tech This Week

🛒 Walmart Partners with OpenAI – Walmart is working with OpenAI to build AI-first shopping experiences, likely using the new App SDK. Imagine asking ChatGPT for dinner ideas and having it build a shopping list and check local store inventory without ever leaving the chat.

🎓 OpenAI to Launch AI Certifications – Buried in a recent OpenAI post on expanding economic opportunity is a teaser for a certification program. With companies scrambling to prove AI literacy, OpenAI seems ready to fill the gap and make “AI certified” the next workplace credential.

💬 Slack Gets Native AI Agents – Slack is rolling out native agent features through Salesforce’s AI Cloud. Soon, your Slackbot might not just answer questions but actually act on them, scheduling meetings, summarizing channels, or updating systems automatically.

---

🎤 The AI Roadshow: Workshops, Talks & Beyond

Oct 24 – DC Startup and Tech Week
Oct. 28 – Enoch Pratt Library Event on XR/AI
Nov. 12 – WTCI AGILE Series
Nov. 20 – AI Summit Europe

---

P.S. Before you go…

If all these OpenAI announcements left you wondering what’s next, here’s a wild one: OpenAI plans to loosen ChatGPT’s “guardrails” to allow adult-oriented conversations and even erotica for age-verified users. CNET has the details.

ChatGPT after dark coming soon to a phone near you…