Goodbye to Custom GPTs: OpenAI shuts them down December 11

OpenAI is phasing out Custom GPTs, the tailored versions of ChatGPT that users and businesses have been able to build themselves since 2023. According to OpenAI's help page, they shut down on December 11, 2026, and the change applies to all ChatGPT subscriptions. From that day, neither the GPTs nor their pages can be opened.

Until then, existing GPTs work as before. OpenAI stresses that no GPTs have disappeared yet and that the announcement is meant to give people time to prepare.

The replacement is called plugins. A plugin is a package that can bundle reusable instructions, files and connections to other services such as Slack or Google Drive. The instructions live in a so-called Skill, a fixed workflow that ChatGPT can use on its own when it fits the task. Where you previously had to open a specific GPT, you can now get straight to work on the task.

What carries over, and what doesn't

When the migration is open for your account, you will find the "Migrate to plugin" button under My GPTs. The GPT's instructions become a Skill in the new plugin, the knowledge files are copied over as reference files, and connected apps come along.

On the other hand, your old conversations do not move over, and neither does the selected model. The sharing settings also disappear, so the plugin starts out as private, and those who used your GPT do not automatically get access. So-called custom actions, where the GPT pulls data from another system on its own, also do not move over and must be rebuilt.

The migration uses the most recently published version of the GPT, so drafts and unpublished edits are not included. Afterward, the old GPT can still be used until the shutdown, but it can no longer be edited.

Businesses have more dates to watch

For Enterprise customers, creation of new Custom GPTs is scheduled to stop on October 26, 2026. Companies that have been granted an extension have until February 11, 2027.

According to OpenAI's help page, Skills themselves are for now available to Business, Enterprise, Healthcare and Edu users. Exactly what each user can do depends on subscription and workspace, and OpenAI asks users to follow the message inside ChatGPT. Google, incidentally, is doing something similar in Gemini, where Gems become Skills starting November 17.

What it means for you

If you use a GPT that someone else made, you don't need to move anything yourself, but keep an eye on whether the creator makes a replacement. If you built GPTs yourself, figure out which ones you actually use, and save a few typical tasks so you can compare the answers after the migration. Expect it to take extra time if your GPT pulls data from other systems.

Here's how to do it step by step: How to turn your Custom GPT into a Skill