ChatGPT to launch shopping in move that will "change the online shopping experience forever"
CHATGPT has launched shopping in a move financial experts say will "change the online shopping experience forever".
Ecommerce could become AIcommerce following the announcement that OpenAI has teamed up with Stripe to revolutionise online shopping using its open-source Agentic Commerce Protocol.
It's already live for single item purchases in the US but could be in the UK soon.
US ChatGPT Plus, Pro and Free users can now buy directly from US Etsy sellers right in chat, with over a million Shopify merchants, like Glossier, SKIMS, Spanx and Vuori, coming soon, it was announced late last night.
OpenAI said its Instant Checkout supports single-item purchases and that soon, it will "add multi-item carts and expand merchants and regions”.
OpenAI said: “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. For shoppers, it’s seamless: go from chat to checkout in just a few taps. For sellers, it’s a new way to reach hundreds of millions of people while keeping full control of their payments, systems, and customer relationships.”
OpenAI continued: "When someone asks a shopping question—“best running shoes under $100” or “gifts for a ceramics lover” — ChatGPT shows the most relevant products from across the web. Product results are organic and unsponsored, ranked purely on relevance to the user.
“If a product supports Instant Checkout, users can tap “Buy,” confirm their order, shipping, and payment details, and complete the purchase without ever leaving the chat. Existing ChatGPT subscribers can pay with their card on file, or other card and express payment options.”
Will Gaybrick, President, Technology and Business, Stripe, said: “Stripe is building 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.”
David Belle, Founder and Trader at Fink Money, said the move was a gamechanger.
He added: "At this rate, what you want to buy will soon appear at your doorstep before you even knew you wanted it. Ecommerce is already ultra-targeted but AI will make it hyper-targeted and change the online shopping experience forever. This is the natural progression when you capture a large audience.
"The best way to monetise a broad-based audience is to provide them with targeted ads, and an AI model can understand exactly what a user wants and is driven by through their continuous searches of topics.
"AI search providers are likely to become huge drivers of advertising spend globally because sellers can become extremely targeted with who they want to reach.
“We're moving to a very precise advertising model based off even more data than before. This has the potential to tranform shopping forever. If you're a retailer, you need to get your head around this, and fast, as consumers increasingly shift to AI over traditional search.”
More than half of British consumers (55%) are now using AI tools when shopping online, according to a new report by the e-commerce marketing platform Omnisend.
The nationwide study of 1,046 UK shoppers revealed that AI chatbots are transforming the way people browse, compare, and make purchasing decisions.
Over a third of those surveyed (34%) said that they turn to AI for product research, while more than a quarter (28%) look for product recommendations, such as help with buying gifts, and a fifth for finding the best deals.
Marty Bauer, Ecommerce Expert at Omnisend, said the move could be enormous for the industry.
He added: “Shopping inside ChatGPT could be retail’s next big disruptor. If AI becomes the shop window, the danger is that brands lose control over how they’re discovered and recommended. It’s no longer about glossy websites, it’s about pleasing the algorithm – and if discovery is outsourced entirely to AI, there’s a real risk that some businesses could become invisible overnight.
“But there’s also huge potential here. Conversational commerce has the power to remove friction from shopping and create genuinely seamless customer experiences. For retailers who are ready to adapt, it’s an opportunity to reach people in new and engaging ways. The key is making sure you don’t put all your eggs in the AI basket: own your customer relationships directly, and use tools like email and SMS to build loyalty alongside whatever comes next.”
Debbie Porter, Managing Director at Bakewell-based Destination Digital Marketing, said businesses need to “jump on this”.
She continued: “This is the evolution that those working in digital marketing have been waiting for. I joined the ChatGPT shopping feed waitlist earlier in the summer, to be ‘the first to know’ when it’s released.
"I will definitely advise my clients that they get involved. The world of SEO has been turned upside down this year, most recently with another Google update in September that has seen businesses’ impressions rates plummet, following the click rate plummet in spring.
"Habits are changing and people are turning to ChatGPT for an answer where Google is not providing. Most interactions with ChatGPT are conversational and usually conclude with ‘recommend a solution’.
"ChatGPT then trawls the internet for products to suggest, which is onerous on server power. If it can pull from a shopping feed it already has, it becomes more efficient. Crucially though, it’ll also bias towards data it already holds, which is why all ecommerce businesses need to jump on this the moment it’s released in the UK.”
