ChatGPT users in the U.S. can now directly purchase products from Etsy and Shopify within conversations, signaling a new era in online shopping—both for consumers and the platforms that control product discovery, recommendations, and payments. In other words, OpenAI may be reshaping the power dynamics in e-commerce.
The new “Instant Checkout” feature from OpenAI is now available to ChatGPT Pro, Plus, and free logged-in users for purchases from Etsy sellers in the U.S. Over one million Shopify merchants, including Glossier, Skims, Spanx, and Vuori, are also expected to join soon.
Instant Checkout builds upon earlier shopping capabilities in ChatGPT. These features previously displayed relevant products, images, reviews, pricing, and direct merchant links when responding to shopping queries such as “What should I buy for a friend who loves pottery?” or “What are the best sneakers to wear to the office?” Now, users can stay within the chat and simply click “Buy” to finalize order, shipping, and payment details (options include Apple Pay, Google Pay, Stripe, or credit card).
Last year, Perplexity introduced a similar in-chat shopping and payment function. Microsoft has also enabled merchants to create in-chat storefronts through its Copilot Merchant Program.
This seamless experience could lead to a transformation in how people shop online—shifting from search engines like Google and e-commerce giants like Amazon toward conversational agents that offer personalized recommendations, product comparisons, and streamlined checkout experiences.
It also paves the way for the emergence of new power brokers in e-commerce. Google and Amazon have long served as gatekeepers of retail discovery. If more purchases begin within AI chatbots, the companies behind these tools could gain significant control over which products are displayed and what fees or commissions are charged.
Amazon and Google have previously used their dominant positions to favor their own products or preferred partners, suppressing competitors in search results or charging sellers high fees for visibility. OpenAI stated in a blog post that the products it displays are “organic and unsponsored, ranked purely based on relevance to the user,” and that it will charge merchants only a “small fee” per completed purchase.
As OpenAI introduces in-chat checkout, the company also announced it will open-source its Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), the underlying technology for Instant Checkout developed in collaboration with Stripe, allowing other merchants and developers to integrate agent-based checkout systems.
“Stripe is building the economic infrastructure for AI,” said Will Gaybrick, Stripe’s president of technology and business, in a statement. “That means rearchitecting today’s commerce systems and enabling new AI-driven experiences for billions of people.”
While some may hesitate to share private payment information with ChatGPT, the company emphasizes that orders, payments, and fulfillment are handled by merchants using their existing systems. ChatGPT acts only as an intermediary—a secure channel for information between the user and the merchant.
Open-sourcing ACP makes it easier for merchants to integrate with ChatGPT, accelerating the adoption of AI chatbots as virtual storefronts. It also expands OpenAI’s potential influence as a gatekeeper in retail discovery and checkout, potentially positioning the company as the de facto architect of the AI-powered commerce ecosystem.
This could once again create tension with Google, which recently launched its own open protocol for AI agent-initiated purchases called the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2).
