OpenAI is scaling back plans to launch shopping capabilities directly within ChatGPT, marking a shift in its much-talked-about strategy for built-in checkout capabilities for chatbots. An OpenAI spokesperson said that the company no longer allows users to place orders directly from product listings in ChatGPT search results, and instead focuses on completing checkouts within third-party dedicated applications that integrate with ChatGPT.
The reason for this shift in strategy is unclear, but currently only a handful of merchants sell through ChatGPT’s built-in checkout. A person familiar with the matter said that OpenAI found internally that although users would research products in the chatbot, they would not actually use it to complete the purchase.
Just half a year ago, OpenAI also vigorously promoted ChatGPT's in-chat checkout function as a major business opportunity, saying it opened an important transformation for users to shop online through AI. At that time, the company reached cooperation with leading companies in the online shopping and payment fields such as Etsy, Shopify, and Stripe.
In September last year, when OpenAI first launched the chatbot checkout function for US users, it stated that products from millions of online stores would soon be available for purchase directly within ChatGPT. The company plans to make money by charging sales commissions from merchants, and will continue to upgrade its features, including adding multi-product shopping carts and opening it to more regions.
In contrast, checking out via an app means, at least initially, a smaller range of participating retailers. Early partners that have developed e-commerce applications for ChatGPT include: Instacart, Target, Expedia, and Booking.com. In December last year, Instacart enabled ChatGPT users to bind their accounts and complete payments directly within the chat.
An OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement:
"We are iterating the ChatGPT e-commerce solution to better suit the actual scenarios of merchants and users. The instant checkout function will be migrated to the application side to make the purchase process smoother. We thank our partners for exploring with us, and we look forward to continuing to advance in this area and announce more progress."
The spokesperson added that the company will prioritize optimizing product search and discovery capabilities within ChatGPT.
This adjustment means that consumers can no longer purchase directly from the product list, but need to pay through the retailer’s app or jump to the retailer’s official website.
Shopify and Etsy did not respond to multiple requests for comment, while Stripe said it had no comment.
OpenAI's strategic shift in the checkout business, which is still in its early stages, highlights the practical difficulties of integrating AI with complex e-commerce businesses. It also heightens the importance of its newly launched advertising business - another major way OpenAI generates significant revenue from its massive free users. (It’s unclear whether OpenAI takes a cut of sales facilitated by the ChatGPT app.)
For OpenAI and other AI companies, it is difficult to implement chatbot shopping functions on a large scale. Merchant's price, inventory and other product information needs to be standardized and continuously updated to ensure that chatbots obtain accurate data; e-commerce and payment institutions need to prevent AI from initiating fraud or wrong transactions.
OpenAI has tried to access a large number of products at once by cooperating with the online platform Etsy and the e-commerce software service provider Shopify. These two companies already have mature systems for connecting millions of merchants and can share some of the heavy work. OpenAI also cooperated with payment giant Stripe to develop a rule system called Agentic Commerce Protocol for merchants, payment institutions and AI companies participating in transactions.
According to people familiar with the matter, OpenAI and Stripe will continue to advance the agreement to provide support for app-based shopping functions.
"The Information" reported in January this year that for the few merchants who have connected to the checkout function, OpenAI still needs hands-on assistance to make the system run normally. Other signs of slow progress are emerging: As of February, OpenAI had not yet established a system for collecting and remitting state sales taxes—something that would be needed if shopping erupts.
From a broader perspective, some merchants are wary of AI shopping features, and it is still unclear whether consumers are willing to complete payments through AI chat. However, Shopify and Etsy still viewed AI checkout cooperation as a potential growth opportunity during their February earnings call. Etsy has previously stated that in order to promote the implementation of ChatGPT shopping, it has borne the commissions merchants need to pay to OpenAI.
But at an investor conference on Tuesday, Shopify President Harry Finkelstein said that only about a dozen of its millions of merchants currently sell through AI tools, and that the bottleneck in slow expansion lies on the side of AI companies. (Shopify software also supports merchants for chat checkout through ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot, both of which announced related features earlier this year.)
Finkelstein said: "The only reason why it is currently limited is that we are waiting for the intelligent application to open up further."
As OpenAI adjusts its e-commerce strategy, e-commerce giant Amazon announced last Friday that it will invest an initial US$15 billion in OpenAI. The announcement said Amazon could use OpenAI custom models in its consumer-facing applications, including its shopping chatbot Rufus, but did not mention that Amazon would sell items within ChatGPT.
Last year, Amazon banned AI applications including ChatGPT from crawling its product information and banned Amazon products from being displayed in chat replies. However, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has said that he is willing to cooperate with external AI shopping tools if the terms are reasonable.