"Competition Spreads to AI Operating Systems"...The Battle for the App Ecosystem Begins in Earnest

Connecting External Services via APIs and Plugins
Competition for Dominance in Agentic Operating Systems
Moves to Establish Common Standards

Competition among artificial intelligence (AI) companies is evolving beyond model performance into building ecosystems that connect external apps and data. This trend reflects efforts to establish dominance in the so-called agentic operating system (OS) space, where AI finds necessary information and carries out tasks on behalf of users instead of requiring them to navigate various apps themselves.

OpenAI announced on August 24 that by November, it will reduce the developer application programming interface (API) prices for GPT-5.6 Sol by 20% for input—to $4 per 1 million tokens—and by 33% for output—to $20 per 1 million tokens. When task processes are divided and allocated to multiple agents, numerous API calls are needed. Lowering API prices, which is the technology for integrating AI agents, can help reduce the cost burden associated with development and operations.

OpenAI is also expanding plugins that connect external services with ChatGPT, enabling users to import information from services like Slack, Google Drive, and Calendar, or automate related tasks. On August 20, the company added a plugin to ChatGPT for Mac that can read, search, compose, and send Apple Messages automatically.

The core of an agentic OS lies in APIs and plugins. The more apps and data that can be connected, the broader the scope of tasks AI can automate. APIs allow developers to integrate AI models into their own apps and services, while plugins enable AI to access information from and perform actions within work tools such as email, calendars, and documents.

Anthropic is also strengthening connections between its model Claude and smartphones and apps. Last month, Claude added integration for iOS features such as Messages, Mail, and Calendar. Its support for connecting to Google Workspace has also been enhanced, making it possible to send Gmail, create calendar events, and manage Drive files.

In Korea, Hancom is developing Sovereign Agentic OS, which manages several AI agents and enterprise work systems within a single environment. This platform converts internal company documents, PDFs, and work knowledge into data AI can understand, and orchestrates agents to divide roles and perform tasks. Hancom plans to release a beta version in the second half of this year and target the public sector, financial market, and Europe, where there is high demand for security and data sovereignty.

As compatibility—connecting multiple agents and external apps—becomes increasingly important, companies are starting to manage their various connection technologies under a common specification. Google's recently developed 'A2A' communication protocol for AI agents has now been included under the management of the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), an organization affiliated with the Linux Foundation. AAIF, which includes major companies such as OpenAI, Microsoft, and AWS, was established to develop an agent compatibility framework that is not tied to any single company and to manage standards so that apps and AI agents can operate together.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.