OpenAI opens applications for 2026 DevDay developer conference
The AI giant's flagship developer event returns to San Francisco in September, backed by a platform now serving 4 million developers and 800 million weekly ChatGPT users.
OpenAI is gearing up for its 2026 DevDay conference, scheduled for September 29 at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. The company is inviting developers to sign up for notifications about the application process, which hasn’t officially opened yet.
What DevDay actually is, and why it matters
DevDay has become OpenAI’s tentpole annual event. The conference series launched in 2023, when the company used the inaugural edition to unveil GPT-4 Turbo features. Each subsequent year has followed the same playbook: roll out new tools, expand API access, and give the developer community something shiny to build with.
The 2025 edition introduced the ChatGPT app platform and AgentKit. The 2026 event is expected to continue that trajectory, though specific announcements remain under wraps.
OpenAI now counts 4 million developers actively building on its platform. Weekly ChatGPT users have surged past 800 million.
The growing developer ecosystem
The 6 billion tokens processed per minute through OpenAI’s APIs reflects a developer base that has moved well past the experimentation phase into production deployments.
What this means for investors
OpenAI’s DevDay isn’t a crypto event. The company has made no connections to digital assets, blockchain technologies, or token-based systems in relation to this conference.
The application-based attendance model is itself a signal. OpenAI isn’t selling tickets to anyone with a credit card. It’s curating the audience, which suggests the company views DevDay as a strategic event rather than a revenue-generating one.