12 Days of OpenAI: Projects, an AI-driven folder system to help you manage your work easier
The feature draws comparisons to Claude’s folder system but adds a personal touch.
The thing with gifts is that you don't know what it is until you unbox it. We've seen OpenAI gift us with the Sora video generator, ChatGPT’s Canvas view, and the $200-per-month ChatGPT Pro subscription.
Now, the artificial intelligent startup has unveiled a new way to organize your chats, files, and ongoing work—a system called “Projects” that functions like a smarter, AI-driven folder system.
David Adubiina
During last Friday’s live stream, OpenAI staff member Thomas Dimson explained the feature, describing it as “smart folders” meant to help users keep track of, well, their projects. And honestly, it looks pretty useful.
In the demo, an OpenAI employee showed how Projects can make planning a Secret Santa gift exchange or managing home maintenance logs way easier. Instead of throwing everything into Apple Notes, you can now keep your work organized in a single place, with chat histories and uploaded files all tied together.
If this sounds a lot like Claude’s folder feature, that’s because it is. But OpenAI seems to have taken it up a notch. With Projects, you can customize folder titles, pick icon colours, upload documents, and even add instructions to tailor how ChatGPT responds when you’re working within a specific folder.
For instance, if you’re using ChatGPT to research and draft a book, you can upload your notes, outlines, and drafts into a single folder. The next time you open the folder, ChatGPT will already know the context, so you won’t need to reshare everything from scratch.
The rollout for Projects started during the live stream and is first going to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Teams users. Enterprise and Edu accounts will get access early in the new year, while free-tier users will get the feature “as soon as possible.” That’s a big deal, given that ChatGPT now has over 300 million weekly users who could benefit from a more organized way to handle their tasks.
OpenAI’s Projects feature adds another tool to the mix of its AI capabilities, making it simpler to stay on top of work, research, or even a Secret Santa.
And while it’s still catching up to Claude in some ways, this latest update shows OpenAI is determined to deliver features that users have been asking for—and maybe even a few they didn’t know they needed.
Emmanuel Oyedeji
