OpenAI said on the 29th (local time) that it will launch a new feature, "Instant checkout," that lets users purchase products directly through ChatGPT.
The feature will first roll out on the U.S. e-commerce platform Etsy and the Canada-based e-commerce platform Shopify. OpenAI said users will be able to purchase single items listed by U.S.-based Etsy sellers and that it will soon add support for more than 1 million on Shopify. OpenAI collects a fee on the transaction made through ChatGPT. However, its fee agreements with Etsy and Shopify were not disclosed. No additional expense will be charged to users.
The "Instant checkout" feature will be available not only to ChatGPT Plus, a paid subscription service, but also to ChatGPT Pro and free users. With this feature, when users view an Etsy seller's product in ChatGPT and want to buy it, they can pay directly within ChatGPT without going to an external site.
Michelle Freydin, OpenAI's head of commerce for ChatGPT, said, "The vision for ChatGPT is not simply to provide information but to help get things done in the real world."
OpenAI plans to roll out a feature that lets users add multiple items to a cart and check out at once, and to expand beyond the United States. OpenAI said the new feature is based on the "Agentic Commerce Protocol," a technology that enables sellers to complete a transaction directly through ChatGPT. OpenAI built this framework in partnership with the fintech company Stripe, which also supports ChatGPT's subscription payment system. OpenAI earlier added a feature in Apr. that lets users shop for products through ChatGPT and is also known to be developing its own payment feature.
With OpenAI adding a payment feature to shopping, competition with Google, the world's largest search engine company, is expected to intensify. Online shopping is one of Google's most important businesses, and OpenAI's payment system has been seen as a potential threat to Google's existing business model. As consumers increasingly turn to AI chatbots rather than traditional search engines to find product searches or shopping information, usage of Google's search engine could decline.