OpenAI has started testing Group chats in ChatGPT in a select few regions where you can “you can bring friends, family, or coworkers into a shared space to plan, make decisions, or work through ideas together,” as per the company. Here’s how the feature works and how it can benefit your workflows.
“Whether you’re organizing a group dinner or drafting an outline with coworkers, ChatGPT can help. Group chats are separate from your private conversations, and your personal ChatGPT memory is never shared with anyone in the chat,” said OpenAI in a blog post.
Group chats allow users to create a chat with ChatGPT and their friends or family members. “For example, if you’re planning a weekend trip with friends, create a group chat so ChatGPT can help compare destinations, build an itinerary, and create a packing list with everyone participating and following along.”
For more hands-on projects, like designing a backyard garden or finding art for a new apartment, create a group chat with your partner or roommates to help collaborate on design ideas, preferences, and styles together. It’s also apt for group decisions, like finding a restaurant that fits everyone’s tastes or settling a friendly debate with an impartial referee.
Group chats also make collaboration at work or school easier. You can draft an outline or research a new topic together. Share articles, notes, and questions, and ChatGPT can help summarize and organize information.
How to Start Group Chats in ChatGPT?
To start a group chat tap the people icon in the top right corner of any new or existing chat. When you add someone to an existing chat, ChatGPT creates a copy of your conversation as a new group chat so your original conversation stays separate. You can invite others directly by sharing a link with one to twenty people, and anyone in the group can share that link to bring others in.
When you join or create your first group chat, you’ll be asked to set up a short profile with your name, username, and photo so everyone knows who’s in the conversation. Group chats can be found in a new clearly-labeled section of the sidebar for easy access.
Responses are powered by GPT‑5.1 Auto, which chooses the best model from the latest GPT-5.1 versions to respond with based on the prompt and the models available to the user that ChatGPT is responding to based on their Free, Go, Plus or Pro plan.
Search, image and file upload, image generation, and dictation are enabled. Rate limits only apply when ChatGPT responds–not to messages between users in the group chat–and responses from ChatGPT count toward the limit available of the person ChatGPT is responding to.
The company has also trained ChatGPT with social behaviours for group chats. It follows the flow of the conversation and decides when to respond and when to stay quiet based on the context of the group conversation. You can always mention “ChatGPT” in a message when you want it to respond. The company has also given ChatGPT the ability to react to messages with emojis, and reference profile photos—so it can, for example, use group members’ photos when asked to create fun personalised images within that group conversation.
Then, users can also manage the group settings by tapping on the participants’ icons to name the group, add or remove people, or mute notifications. You can set custom instructions for how ChatGPT responds in each group chat, whether that’s sharing more context or giving specific tone or personality.
OpenAI notes that your personal ChatGPT memory is not used in group chats, and ChatGPT does not create new memories from these conversations. Then, you have to accept an invitation to join a group chat and everyone can see who’s in the chat or leave at any time. Group members can remove other participants with the exception of the group creator, who can only be removed by leaving themselves. Further, if someone under 18 uses group chats, ChatGPT automatically reduces exposure to sensitive content for everyone in the chat.
Group Chats in ChatGPT: Availability
Group chats in ChatGPT are starting to roll out on mobile and web for logged-in users on ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus and Pro plans in Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Taiwan.