OpenAI is finally merging ChatGPT’s chat and Work tabs

ChatGPT's desktop app has turned into a maze: ChatGPT and Codex sections, with separate Chat and Work tabs inside the first. OpenAI told users by email that it will merge Chat and Work into one place, starting with select users for feedback before a wider rollout.

The pitch is that you can go from exploring an idea to having ChatGPT carry it through, using files and plugins to build a site, make a presentation or act on the web, while you review its work. Codex stays separate.

The bigger change for many people is billing. ChatGPT and Codex will now draw from the same token allowance. OpenAI says most users won't be affected, but some may hit resets more often depending on usage and model.

We're glad to see this. When the person using a product has to remember which tab their project lives in, the product has failed them, and putting conversation and action in one place matches how people actually work. You talk something through, then you want it done. Rival Anthropic made the same move with Claude's chat and Cowork in September, and the industry seems to be settling on a single surface where talking and doing happen together.

The downside is that one place to talk and act is also one place where an agent can act on your behalf with less friction. Building a website or doing things on the web for you is useful, and it's also where mistakes have real consequences. OpenAI's emphasis on reviewing and guiding the work is the right instinct. We'll be watching whether the merged design keeps that review step visible or lets it fade into the background.

The shared allowance deserves more attention than it got in the announcement. Pooling ChatGPT and Codex tokens means a long coding session can eat into a person's everyday chat budget, and the other way around. OpenAI's assurance that most users won't notice is probably true, but the heavy users this applies to are often the paying customers who rely on these tools for work. Agentic tasks burn far more tokens than simple chats, so as the merged tab pushes more people to hand whole tasks to ChatGPT, we expect more people to hit those limits.

The likelier long-term pattern is that simpler interfaces come with more complicated metering. We'd prefer OpenAI show clearly how much of the pool a given task uses before people run into a reset in the middle of their work.

This is an early, feedback-stage rollout announced in an email to users, so the final design could change. Codex remains its own section of the ChatGPT desktop app.