Use OpenAI's Assistants API with your Zaps

Written by Owner

Updated at August 20th, 2025

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Table of Contents

Requirements Add tools to your assistant Retrieve information Function Code Interpreter Storing context with threads Supported models

Alpha

The OpenAI Assistants API is an alpha feature. It’s available for use but still in active development and may change.

You can use Zapier's ChatGPT app to add OpenAI's Assistants API actions to your Zaps. These actions give you access to an AI assistant that can help execute tasks. Through the Zap, you can create assistants, have conversations with them, and use files as sources of knowledge for the assistant.

Currently, the following actions are available for the Assistants API:

Conversation with Assistant
Create Assistant
Find Assistant
Upload File for Assistant
Find File with Assistant

With these actions, you can:

Build an AI assistant with personality and precise instructions.
Use tools to find information within an uploaded file, run code, and analyze data.
Have conversations with an assistant, add user messages, and get the assistant to respond.
Retain the history of a conversation for up to 30 days.

Tip

If you want to use the power of Zapier directly in your ChatGPT account, you can also use Zapier AI actions within a GPT.

Requirements

To use Assistants API actions, you must have:

A Zapier account - free or paid. Sign up for a free account now.
Access to OpenAI’s API. Learn how to get your OpenAI API key.
(Optional) To use the GPT-4 model, you must have API access to the model from OpenAI.

Add tools to your assistant

Retrieve information

Use the Retrieval tool to search within a document and return an answer. You can add a data source file, such as a policy or knowledge base document, and the assistant will refer to it to give you an answer. An assistant can use these file types:

The current maximum file size is 512MB.

Function

The Function tool allows you to create custom functions that can run during a conversation and return information. This tool can run single or multiple functions. Learn more about it in OpenAI's developer documentation.

Code Interpreter

Use the Code Interpreter tool to run code or execute mathematical operations, such as advanced data analysis. You can upload the following file types:

The assistant can return information in the following formats:

Diagrams or charts.
CSV files.
PDF files.

Storing context with threads

You can use threads to continue a conversation. Threads do not have a size limit, so you can add as many messages as you need. Messages are stored in threads for 30 days.

Supported models

Assistants work with the following OpenAI models:

gpt-3.5-turbo.
gpt-4.
Fine-tuned models.

Tip

Use gpt-4 to get access to the latest model capabilities.