How are connectors being discovered by users today?

If I build a connector, how will people find it?

Most people will find it when the AI suggests it, and the AI suggests only a small set of high-ranked connectors. Before it searches the directory, it has usually decided which brands to look for. If your rank is low and the AI does not know your name for the task, people will not find your connector in a chat.

How do people find connectors today?

Every major AI app has three ways:

Browsing a directory. ChatGPT has chatgpt.com/plugins, Claude has claude.ai/directory (with a Trending page for the fastest-growing connectors), and Muse lists connectors under Settings > Connectors. Few people browse far. ChatGPT's directory lists about 7,400 plugins, and its front page showed 91 of them when we opened it on October 19.

Calling one by name. Once a connector is installed, you can pull it into a chat yourself with an @ mention or the + menu in ChatGPT (OpenAI), or the + and / menus in Claude.

The AI suggests one. Ask for help with a task, and the AI offers a connector that can do it, often one you have never installed. We tried it in all three apps:

ClaudeChatGPTMuse

Claude showed five CRM connectors side by side and let us pick. ChatGPT offered exactly one plugin with an Install button. Muse offered Spotify because we named Spotify. A single suggestion is a much bigger prize than one slot in a list of five, and it is harder to win.

How does the AI choose which connectors to suggest?

It searches the directory, and it has usually chosen a few brands before it searches. The AI types about five keywords into a search of the connector directory and looks at what comes back. To choose those keywords, it often runs a quick web search first.

The keywords are a mix of general terms and brand names. For our CRM request, Claude searched for "CRM" and also for HubSpot, Attio and Clay by name. In another test about email, the AI searched for "Gmail email inbox Outlook" and offered those two connectors. An email app like Superhuman would not come up unless the AI thought of its name.

This is the key point for a brand. A connector that the AI already links to a task gets found. A connector that only matches a general word competes with every other connector in the category.

Why isn't my connector being suggested?

Most likely, your rank is too low. The plugins we have seen ChatGPT suggest all rank in about the top 150 of its directory, and Figma, at #143, is the lowest we found. The five CRM connectors Claude offered us all rank high on Anthropic's popularity list: HubSpot #9, Salesforce (Beta) #28, Apollo.io #34, Clay #65 and Attio #133, out of about 6,400 ranked connectors.

If your connector ranks in the thousands, raise usage first (see what each rank is worth), then make sure the AI knows your brand name for the tasks you want to win.

What do ChatGPT, Claude and Muse say about suggestions?

ChatGPT is the strictest. OpenAI's review requirements say "few plugins will receive enhanced distribution at publication" (directory placement or proactive suggestions), and "Developers cannot request enhanced distribution." The DevDay 2026 recap promised "improved ranking and recommendations," but did not say who qualifies.

Claude says it is open, but it is selective in practice. Its developer docs say "every directory entry is automatically eligible, and there is no separate opt-in." The order "reflects what's likely useful to you, not partnership arrangements" (Anthropic). Every connector we have seen Claude suggest ranks high, and we think it may suggest only its verified connectors. We need more tests to confirm that.

Muse promises nothing. Meta's connector guidelines say approved connectors "are discoverable by the Muse agent," but that this "does not guarantee featuring, ranking, or traffic."

So, what should you do?

Be the name the AI thinks of. The AI picks brand names from what it knows and from a web search. Pages that name your brand next to the task ("the CRM for startups") help put your name in its search.

Raise your rank. Suggestions go to high-ranked connectors, so push your current users to connect after launch.

Write your metadata for the requests you want to win. "ChatGPT and Codex decide when to call your tool based on the metadata you provide" (OpenAI). Describe precisely what your connector is good at, and start each tool description with "Use this when". Do not try to game it: OpenAI's plugin guidelines forbid descriptions that "recommend overly broad triggering beyond the explicit user intent."

Fill in your keywords. ChatGPT plugins can set an "array of discovery terms." Only 1,674 of the 7,436 ChatGPT plugins we read in detail use it, so about three in four leave a free discovery field empty.

Check your plan and country settings in ChatGPT. Whether someone can install a plugin "depends on your plan, workspace, role, region" (OpenAI). A plan or country list set at submission can quietly hide your plugin from whole groups of users.

Methodology

Counts, ranks and listing fields come from our daily read of the ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor and Muse stores, as of October 20, 2026 (our method). The front-page count is the logged-out view of chatgpt.com/plugins on October 19, and a signed-in view may differ by plan and region. The keywords are a field in OpenAI's own directory data. The suggestion screenshots and keyword searches are from our own tests.