Hassan Khan
OpenAI just took a big step into the world of e-commerce. With its new Instant Checkout feature, ChatGPT users in the U.S. can now buy products from Etsy directly inside their chat no clicking away, no juggling between tabs. Shopify, with its more than one million merchants, is next in line. This move doesn’t just streamline online shopping; it hints at a future where AI chatbots might rival Google and Amazon as the ultimate gatekeepers of retail.
Shopping Without Leaving the Chat
Until now, ChatGPT’s shopping features mostly worked like a recommendation engine. You could ask, “What should I buy for a friend who loves ceramics?” and get back a curated list of products with links, reviews, and prices. Helpful, yes but you still had to leave the conversation to finish your order.
Instant Checkout changes that. Users can now simply hit “Buy” within ChatGPT, confirm shipping and payment details, and wrap up their purchase right there in the chat window. Payment options include Apple Pay, Google Pay, Stripe, or a good old fashioned credit card.
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It’s shopping boiled down to its simplest form: ask, choose, pay all without leaving the conversation.
Early Partners and What’s Coming Next
For now, Instant Checkout is rolling out to U.S. Based Etsy sellers, giving small businesses a powerful new channel to reach customers. Shopify integration is on the horizon, which means brands like Glossier, Skims, Spanx, and Vuori will soon be part of the in chat shopping experience. That’s a serious upgrade in visibility for merchants and a big convenience boost for buyers.
Meta’s competitors aren’t standing still, either. Perplexity has tested a similar system, while Microsoft’s Copilot Merchant Program already lets businesses build in chat storefronts. But given ChatGPT’s massive user base, OpenAI may have just planted the strongest flag yet in AI-powered commerce.
A Shift in Who Controls Online Shopping
For years, Google and Amazon have held the keys to product discovery. Shoppers either searched on Google or went straight to Amazon’s marketplace. Both platforms have been accused of stacking the deck prioritizing their own products, charging sellers hefty fees, or burying competitors.
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If ChatGPT becomes the place where people start their shopping journey, that balance of power could change. OpenAI says product results are unsponsored and ranked purely on relevance. Merchants will only pay a “Small fee” on completed sales. It’s a pitch that might sound especially attractive to smaller brands tired of paying top dollar just to be seen on crowded platforms.
The Tech Behind the Checkout
Instant Checkout runs on something called the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), built in partnership with Stripe. OpenAI isn’t keeping this technology to itself it’s making ACP open source. That means other merchants and developers can integrate the system, expanding the reach of AI-driven checkout far beyond ChatGPT.
“Stripe is building the economic infrastructure for AI,” said Will Gaybrick, Stripe’s president of technology and business. “That means re architecting today’s commerce systems and creating new AI-powered experiences for billions of people.”
In other words, this isn’t just a neat feature for Etsy shoppers it’s the beginning of a bigger rewrite of how online transactions happen.
Balancing Convenience and Trust
Of course, some people will hesitate before handing over payment details to a chatbot. OpenAI insists that orders and payments are processed directly by the merchants using their existing systems. ChatGPT only acts as a secure intermediary, passing along information without storing sensitive data. Still, the question of trust will hang over any shift of this scale.
An Overview
E-commerce has been dominated by a handful of giants for decades. But Instant Checkout signals a new wave: one where AI chatbots double as personal shopping assistants and virtual storefronts. If adoption grows, OpenAI could position itself as one of the main architects of tomorrow’s retail experience.
For now, it’s starting with Etsy, soon expanding to Shopify, and eventually? Maybe your entire shopping cart begins and ends in a chat.
Summary
In-Short: OpenAI has launched Instant Checkout in ChatGPT, letting U.S. users buy directly from Etsy sellers, with over 1 million Shopify merchants coming soon. The feature removes friction by allowing payments via Apple Pay, Google Pay, Stripe, or credit cards without leaving the chat. OpenAI also announced its open-source Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), enabling broader merchant integration. This move could shift e-commerce power away from Google and Amazon toward AI chatbots as new retail gatekeepers.
