AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini are rapidly becoming one of the most important channels for commerce. Users are already relying on these platforms to research, compare, and make decisions, and this behavior is accelerating. Any brand that wants to stay relevant and maintain control over the customer experience will need to be present inside these platforms.
This new conversational frontend comes with its own set of challenges. Alokai has always focused on helping customers stay ahead of major technological shifts, which is why we are launching the world’s first framework for building OpenAI Apps.
AI platforms are having their mobile moment
The industry understands that AI platforms are becoming a major channel, but the significance of the OpenAI Apps SDK is still not fully appreciated. It gives brands a way to own their presence inside these platforms and directly shape the experience users receive.
A new generation of Apps that install automatically and activate when relevant in the conversation will replace generic platform responses with branded and controlled experiences. Brands without Apps will offer a noticeably weaker experience than competitors who adopt them early. In a landscape where user experience directly influences conversion, this will create a widening gap in performance.
At Alokai, we see AI platforms evolving into a new conversational operating system. Just as smartphones became powerful through their app ecosystems, AI platforms will expand through personalized apps created by brands.
Delivering a smooth experience will not be easy
Building for this new environment introduces new technical, architectural, and usability challenges. Alokai is committed to helping teams navigate these shifts with clear building blocks rather than black boxes.
Our goal is to provide a complete framework that allows brands to build unique, governed experiences across every channel as part of a unified system.
How the Alokai OpenAI Apps framework accelerates brands
Our framework uses the same component model customers already rely on for their storefronts. The same building blocks can be reused across web, mobile, and AI platforms. This means teams can launch into this new channel faster, avoid duplicated work, reduce maintenance costs, and maintain a consistent design system and user experience across every touchpoint.
What comes out of the box
This framework follows the same philosophy as all Alokai tools. We provide building blocks, not boxed solutions. Teams stay in control of the experience while working on top of solid foundations.
Out of the box you receive a functioning OpenAI App that covers core use cases like product discovery and cart interactions, along with a preconfigured Model Context Protocol (MCP) server required for deployment. Everything is already integrated with Alokai Connect and Alokai Cloud.
The storefront and OpenAI Apps frameworks are designed to work together as one workflow and share context. This enables a seamless journey that starts inside an AI platform for discovery and continues into the storefront for purchasing or any next step of the buying process.
Alokai Compass is now the most complete AI frontend framework on the market
Apps are only one part of the shift happening in commerce. Agentic Commerce Protocol, Instant Shopping, Google’s Agentic Checkout, and other emerging channels will soon play an important role in how users shop. Alokai Compass will support these channels so brands can adopt them without duplicating effort or rebuilding core logic.
Compass will continue to evolve by improving the Storefront Framework and transforming static applications into AI guided journeys.
With this release, Alokai Compass becomes the only solution that supports AI transformation of existing channels like web and mobile and expansion into entirely new agentic ones. This unlocks new ways for brands to experiment, learn, and grow across channels, and we are not slowing down. Our vision for an end to end AI frontend framework is close to complete. Expect the announcement of the final missing piece soon.
