OpenAI is previewing a dedicated Windows app for ChatGPT, its AI-powered chatbot platform. At the moment, it’s only available to ChatGPT Plus, Team, Enterprise and Edu users. The company said the app is an early version while a “full experience” arrives later in the year.

“With the official ChatGPT desktop app, you can chat about files and photos. This app brings you the newest model improvements from OpenAI, including access to OpenAI o1-preview, our newest and smartest model,” OpenAI has said.

Just like the Mac version of the app, ChatGPT on Windows lets you ask the AI-powered chatbot questions in a dedicated window that you can keep open alongside your apps. The app for Windows lets you minimise it to a small “companion” window while you work. You can upload files and photos to it, have it summarise documents and create images via OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 image generator.

The new app for Windows can run on most Windows 10 machines but there are a few limitations (for the time being) compared to other ChatGPT clients. First, it does not support voice yet, including Advanced Voice Mode. Second, a few integrations with OpenAI’s GPT Store aren’t functional.

Soon after the Mac version of the app launched in June, a developer spotted a security vulnerability that stored conversations in plain text. The has since fixed this issue and now encrypts locally stored data.

Meanwhile, a New York Times report has pointed to a “fraying” relationship between Microsoft and OpenAI. Microsoft has already invested $13 billion in OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman once called the partnership “the best bromance in tech”. Financial pressure on OpenAI and disagreements between employees of the two companies have strained their five-year partnership, according to the report. The US newspaper said that some OpenAI employees have complained that “if another company beat it to the creation of AI that matches the human brain, Microsoft will be to blame because it hasn’t given OpenAI the computing power it needs”.