ChatGPT can now text people for you through a new Apple Messages plug-in

OpenAI says the plug-in lets users sort, analyze, or edit their messages from inside ChatGPT, and that it works with Codex and ChatGPT Work as well as the consumer app, extending the feature to professional use rather than just personal messaging. A promotional clip for the launch shows a user asking the chatbot to suggest follow-up replies to contacts based on the previous day’s conversations. Beyond drafting, users can ask ChatGPT to delete messages, draft and send texts on their behalf, or search for specific information buried in their message history.

Connecting an AI assistant directly to a user’s text messages raises predictable privacy questions. OpenAI told Bloomberg that the plug-in runs locally on a user’s device and that it “doesn’t create an index of all someone’s messages,” though the company hasn’t detailed exactly what that means in practice; TechCrunch has reached out to OpenAI for more information. For message sending specifically, OpenAI is telling users to keep close watch on what ChatGPT is doing, actively discouraging people from turning on persistent approval for outgoing texts — a setting that, the company warns, “removes your final chance to review a message before ChatGPT sends it as you.”

Why it matters

Handing an AI assistant read-and-send access to a person’s private messages is one of the more sensitive permissions any chatbot has asked for yet, and how OpenAI actually implements the “no full index” claim will matter more than the feature announcement itself.