OpenAI just replaced Custom GPTs with Workspace Agents — and the free window closes 6 July.

What changed

Custom GPTs — OpenAI's earlier product for building specialised chatbot configurations — required individual users to prompt them manually each time. They had no persistent state, no autonomous triggering, and no direct integration with external business systems. They were useful, but they still depended on a human asking them to do something.

Workspace Agents change that architecture. A Workspace Agent can be built once, shared across a team in ChatGPT, and set to take action autonomously — without waiting for someone to start a conversation. It can monitor a connected app for a trigger event, perform a series of actions across multiple tools, and deliver results into a Slack channel or email inbox.

The third-party integrations available at launch include Slack, Google Drive, Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Notion, and Atlassian Rovo. Agents run on GPT-5.5, with configurable reasoning effort for cost control.

What this looks like in practice

For a sales team on ChatGPT Business: a Sales Opportunity Agent can research an account, pull notes from Gong or CRM call records, summarise the key signals, and post a deal brief directly into the relevant Slack channel — triggered automatically when a new opportunity is created in Salesforce. What previously took sales reps five to six hours a week now runs in the background on every active deal.

For a service business: a Customer Enquiry Agent can monitor a shared inbox, pull relevant details from a connected database, draft a personalised reply, and flag anything requiring human review — leaving the team to focus on the cases that genuinely need them, rather than routing the ones that do not.

For a small UK operator without a dedicated IT team: the pre-built agent templates in the ChatGPT Business interface lower the technical bar significantly. You do not need to write code to create a useful agent — you select a template, connect the apps you already use, and set the trigger conditions.

The 6 July deadline

The free research preview for ChatGPT Business users was extended once already and now runs until 6 July 2026. After that date, credit-based pricing begins. OpenAI has not published exact credit rates for each action type, but the preview window is a concrete incentive to build and test before costs begin.

ChatGPT Business is priced at $20 per user per month. Enterprise, Edu, and Teachers plan holders are also eligible for the preview. The upgrade from the free tier to Business is the unlock — once there, Workspace Agents are accessible without additional per-agent fees during the preview period.