ChatGPT Now Lets Users Shop Without Leaving the Chat Window With New Instant Checkout Feature

OpenAI has added a new ChatGPT Instant Checkout feature to its AI chatbot, which lets customers buy products without leaving their chat window. It is currently only available in the US. However, all ChatGPT users, whether they are Plus, Pro, or free subscribers, can buy products from Etsy sellers. Moreover, the company will soon allow buyers to purchase goods from Shopify merchants, too. To make this possible, the company has built a new open standard protocol. With this move, the company joins its competitors, like Perplexity, which allow users to buy products from AI chatbots.

ChatGPT Users Can Now Buy Products Within Conversations

The US-based tech firm announced that it is introducing AI agentic shopping capability to ChatGPT with Instant Checkout. OpenAI will currently allow ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and free users in the US to buy different products directly from their conversation windows with the chatbot from Etsy sellers. Later, people will also be able to buy products from Shopify merchants, like Glossier, Skims, Spanx, and Vuori.

For now, the Instant Checkout feature in ChatGPT only allows single-item purchases. However, OpenAI plans to enable multi-item purchases while expanding the list of onboarded merchants and regions where the feature is present.

OpenAI is also open-sourcing the technology that enables Instant Checkout in ChatGPT. This is said to allow more sellers and developers to begin “building their integrations”. Dubbed Agentic Commerce Protocol, it is an open standard that enables AI agentic commerce, allowing businesses, users, and chatbots to “work together to complete purchases”. The company built it in collaboration with Stripe.

Coming to how people can use it, they can initiate a new conversation or click on an existing one in OpenAI's ChatGPT and ask the chatbot about a specific product. For example, users can ask about the best running shoes under Rs. 8,000 or gifts for people who like ceramic bowls.

In response, ChatGPT will show the most relevant products from across different platforms. OpenAI claims that the results generated are “organic and unsponsored”, which have been ranked based on “relevance to the user”.

Users will be able to buy the product directly from the chat if the desired product supports Instant Checkout. People can then confirm their purchase, shipping address, and payment details to complete the process. ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers will be able to make the payment with their registered credit or debit card.

Sellers have to pay a fee to OpenAI for the purchases made through ChatGPT Instant Checkout. However, the company also stated that no additional charges are levied on customers. According to OpenAI, the Instant Checkout products are “not preferred” in results. While ranking the same product from different merchants, ChatGPT factors in the “availability, price, quality, whether a merchant is the primary seller, and whether Instant Checkout is enabled”.