Stepping into its next phase of advancement, OpenAI’s ChatGPT will now support shopping feature from withing the app, powered by Agentic Commerce Protocol. On September 30, OpenAI announced that its ChatGPT’s U.S. users can now shop from Etsy sellers from within the platform. In the coming time, OpenAI also plans to onboard Shopify merchants, like Glossier, SKIMS, Spanx and Vuori for users to shop from, it said.
In the initial roll out phase of this Instant Checkout feature, users can purchase one product at a time from within ChatGPT. Multi-item support for these shopping carts will be added in the next phase.
“We’re taking first steps toward agentic commerce in ChatGPT with new ways for people, AI agents, and businesses to shop together,” said the San Francisco-based AI firm that claimed that over 700 million people are using ChatGPT each week for help with everyday tasks.
To power this Instant Checkout feature, OpenAI worked with online payment processing platform, Stripe to develop the agentic commerce protocol. In its official statement, OpenAI explained that this technology is an open standard for AI commerce that lets AI agents, people, and businesses collaborate to complete purchases.
“This marks the next step in agentic commerce, where ChatGPT doesn’t just help you find what to buy, it also helps you buy it,” the AI firm said, noting that the technology will work across platforms and will support integration without changing backend systems.
To use this shopping feature on ChatGPT, users could initiate a search for instance, the best running shoes under $100. If a listed product is supported by the Instant Checkout feature, users can tap on the “Buy” option and purchase it with their cards.
“Orders, payments, and fulfillment are handled by the merchant using their existing systems. ChatGPT simply acts as the user’s AI agent—securely passing information between user and merchant, just like a digital personal shopper would. Merchants pay a small fee on completed purchases, but the service is free for users, doesn’t affect their prices, and doesn’t influence ChatGPT’s product results,” the announcement noted.
OpenAI has specifically clarified that products compatible with the Instant Checkout feature will not get any preferential treatment on the search results and that the listed products will be generated organically and purely ranked on relevance to the users.
Will Gaybrick, the President of Technology and Business at Stripe lauded the development saying that Stripe is now playing a crucial part in developing the economic infrastructure for AI.
“That means re-architecting today’s commerce systems and creating new AI-powered experiences for billions of people. We’re proud to power Instant Checkout in ChatGPT and co-develop the Agentic Commerce Protocol to help businesses and AI platforms build the future of commerce,” Gaybrick noted.
The expansion of this shopping feature on ChatGPT for locations outside the U.S. will be announced in the coming time, OpenAI said.