ChatGPT can help users shop while chatting

OpenAI has just announced that it will allow US users to make purchases directly through ChatGPT using its new Instant Checkout feature, powered by an AI payment protocol developed in conjunction with Stripe.

This is a big step forward for OpenAI to monetize its 700 million weekly users, many of whom currently pay nothing to interact with ChatGPT, and a move that could help it take market share from Google's traditional search ads.

The implementation of chatbot shopping features, including the ability for AI agents to shop on behalf of users, could also disrupt e-commerce, completely transforming the way businesses design websites and market to consumers.

OpenAI says it's rolling out Instant Checkout with Etsy sellers today and will soon add more than a million Shopify sellers, including brands like Glossier, Skims, Spanx, and Vuori.

The company also announced the open source of Agentic Commerce Protocol, a payments standard developed in partnership with Stripe that powers Instant Checkout, so any retailer or business can decide to build a shopping integration with ChatGPT.

Stripe and OpenAI's commerce protocol supports the open-source Model Context Protocol, or MCP, originally developed by AI company Anthropic last year. MCP is designed to allow AI models to connect directly to the backend systems of businesses and retailers.

OpenAI will collect a small fee from sellers for each purchase, helping boost the company's revenue at a time when it's burning through billions of dollars a year to train and run AI models.

Previously, OpenAI launched a shopping feature in ChatGPT that helped users find the product that best suited them, but the suggested results then linked out to the seller's website where the user had to complete the purchase, similar to how Google search works.

The way the new system works is simple but effective. When ChatGPT users ask shopping-related questions like “best hiking boots for me under $150” or “what birthday gift can I get my 10-year-old nephew,” the chatbot will still respond with product recommendations.

OpenAI emphasizes that its product results are organic and not sponsored, ranking based solely on relevance to the user. The company also asserts that results are not influenced by the fees merchants pay to support Instant Checkout.

To determine which particular merchant's products will be shown to users, ChatGPT considers factors such as availability, price, quality, whether the merchant is a primary seller, and whether Instant Checkout is enabled.

ChatGPT subscribers who pay a monthly fee for premium features will be able to use the same credit or debit card they use to pay for their subscription or save alternative payment methods for use.

OpenAI's decision to launch shopping using Stripe's Agentic Commerce Protocol will be a major boost for this payments standard, which can be used across different AI platforms and also works with different payment processors, though it will be easier to integrate for existing Stripe customers.

For now, OpenAI says the user remains in control, having to explicitly consent to each step of the purchasing process before any action is taken. However, it's easy to imagine that in the future, users could authorize ChatGPT or other AI models to act more like "agents" and actually make purchases for them based on their requests without having to check back with the user.

The fact that users never have to leave the chat interface to make a purchase could pose a challenge to Alphabet's Google advertising business, with most of the company's revenue coming from referring users to companies' websites.