ChatGPT can now send texts for you with new Apple Messages plug-in

Ever wanted someone else to do your texting for you? ChatGPT is being offered up as an automated text scribe via a new Apple Messages integration.

What the plug-in does

If you’ve ever wanted to share all of your digital conversations with OpenAI, we have good news for you: The AI lab has just launched an Apple Messages plug-in for ChatGPT, allowing interested users to connect their Messages inbox with the chatbot.

The benefits of doing this, OpenAI argues, are numerous. Users can use the plug-in to sort, analyze, or edit their messages directly from ChatGPT. The plug-in also works with Codex and ChatGPT Work, so users can use it professionally, not just personally.

A brief commercial advertising the new plug-in shows a user asking the chatbot to suggest follow-up messages to their contacts based on the messages received the previous day. You can also ask ChatGPT to:

• delete messages for you,
• draft and send messages on your behalf, or
• search for information buried deep in your message history.

Privacy and approval

As with most things related to AI, this new feature raises some privacy questions. OpenAI told Bloomberg that the plug-in runs locally on a user’s machine and that it “doesn’t create an index of all someone’s messages.” Still, the specifics of what that means aren’t immediately clear. TechCrunch has reached out to OpenAI for more information.

When it comes to message sending, OpenAI encourages users to keep an eye on what ChatGPT is doing and discourages turning on persistent approval, warning that doing so “removes your final chance to review a message before ChatGPT sends it as you,” the company writes.