OpenAI announced the launch of a new protocol called Agentic Commerce Protocol, which allows e-commerce platforms to directly connect product inventory to the ChatGPT interface. In the future, users can complete product selection and ordering in the conversation without having to jump to the web page. This move follows the current trend of technology companies "embedding" shopping functions into core applications; before this, Google had tested "complete purchases within the search results page" in AI Mode, and Samsung also allowed users to purchase corresponding products directly from album pictures.
Before this update, when users asked ChatGPT for shopping advice, most of them could only get more abstract purchasing guides, such as which features, parameters or price ranges they should pay attention to, but lacked specific product guidance. After the introduction of the new protocol, merchants can connect their own product catalogs, and ChatGPT can return targeted physical product recommendations based on understanding user needs, and support users to directly complete the order process in the dialogue interface.
OpenAI said that after accessing the Agentic Commerce Protocol, ChatGPT will provide users with multiple optional products to compare different prices and functional configurations, thereby strengthening the "price comparison + decision-making" link. As such protocols and other protocols for embedding goods in AI search scenarios are launched, a new SEO ecosystem for e-commerce websites around AI assistant interfaces is expected to form. At present, OpenAI has not announced exclusive e-commerce cooperation with any specific platform, which means that the product display space within ChatGPT will be open to competition for all merchants at the beginning.
The industry generally regards "increasing user stay time" as one of the core goals of large platforms, and AI companies increasingly hope to penetrate into almost every step of user operations on the device. OpenAI has previously started to build a desktop-level "super application" that integrates the Atlas browser, ChatGPT and Codex to unify various services into a single entrance. This time, the inclusion of shopping experience in ChatGPT is regarded as a key part of improving this overall layout.
According to the pace announced by OpenAI, these new shopping features will be gradually opened to all users of ChatGPT this week, covering the free version, Go package, and Plus and Pro subscribers. From the perspective of time point and scope of application, OpenAI chose to fully roll out based on existing users, instead of conducting a small-scale test first and then expanding to free users.