For years, E-commerce has been dominated by the same big names, making online shopping feel pretty much the same. But that’s about to change. With its new “Instant Checkout” feature, people in the U.S. can now buy products directly in their ChatGPT conversations. It will start with sellers on Etsy and will soon include over a million Shopify merchants, including well-known brands like Glossier, Skims, Spanx, and Vuori.
This integration eliminates the need for users to leave the chat to complete their purchases, making online shopping smoother and faster than before. This development not only enhances user convenience but also challenges the established dominance of Google and Amazon in e-commerce. These giants have traditionally been the middlemen between buyers and sellers, deciding which products get seen and how much sellers pay to be visible.
If AI chatbots like ChatGPT gain traction as shopping interfaces, companies like OpenAI could emerge as a disruptor, shaping what products get surfaced while controlling transaction fees, completely changing the market dynamics.
Until now, ChatGPT has mostly helped users find products by showing options and sending you off to merchant websites. Now, instead of being redirected, you can finish your purchase right inside the chat. Payment options also include Apple Pay, Google Pay, Stripe, and credit card.
The technical backbone of this move is the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), an open-source payment technology co-developed by OpenAI and Stripe. By open sourcing ACP, OpenAI invites merchants and developers to build their own integrations. This protocol is also designed to securely handle sensitive payment info by creating encrypted tokens, ridding concerns about privacy and security.
“By co-developing the Agentic Commerce Protocol with Stripe, we’re making it possible for businesses of all sizes to meet people where they are—and for shoppers to complete purchases seamlessly in conversation,” said Fidji Simo, CEO of Applications at OpenAI.
Disrupting the Power Balance
Google and Amazon have been running the show for a very long time. They’ve shaped what products get seen and charged sellers huge fees just to stay visible. OpenAI’s promise of organic, unsponsored product results ranked purely by relevance is a marked contrast, giving consumers a fairer shot at discovering the best products.
However, this positioning hints at a delicate balancing act OpenAI must perform. By charging a “small fee” to merchants on completed purchases, OpenAI establishes a new revenue stream while setting itself up as a gatekeeper in this market. The open-source nature of ACP provides transparency but also underlines OpenAI’s goal of becoming the architect of the AI commerce ecosystem.
For consumers, the main benefit is the sheer convenience of finishing a purchase without leaving the chat. If you’re a ChatGPT subscriber, the system remembers your saved payment methods, so repeat buying gets faster and smoother. While some users might hesitate to share payment details with AI chatbots, OpenAI clarifies that all order processing, payment handling, and fulfillment rest with the merchant’s existing systems while ChatGPT functions as a secure intermediary.
A reddit user had this to say, “Instant checkout sounds cool but I’m still wary about sharing payment info with an AI. Hope they keep security tight.”
In August, ChatGPT crossed over 700 million active users weekly. Michelle Fradin, Product Development Lead for ChatGPT commerce at OpenAI, said a large number of questions people ask involve shopping or buying things in some way.
“Customers should be able to securely buy where they discover; businesses should be able to sell through new channels without giving up trust, brand, or control; and AI agents should be able to enable transactions without exposing customer credentials,” said Stripe.
Looking ahead, the Instant Checkout feature roadmap includes support for multi-item shopping carts and geographic expansion beyond the U.S. There is also the prospect of more “agentic” AI behaviors, where bots could proactively complete purchases on behalf of users based on their preferences, without explicit confirmation every time.
A Shift in Market Dynamics
The shift will disrupt how companies design their online stores and plan their digital marketing. As AI agents become virtual storefronts, businesses will need to rethink everything from product feeds and inventory management to pricing and promotions, ensuring their offerings are optimized for AI-driven discovery.
Small and medium-sized businesses might finally get a fair shot to compete alongside retail giants, thanks to the level playing field AI-powered discovery can create. OpenAI’s move also ramps up the rivalry with Google, which recently launched its own payment protocol called Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) to support AI-driven purchases.
“Our vision for ChatGPT, and a lot of the technology we create, but especially ChatGPT, is that it’s not just providing you information, it is also helping you get things done in the real world,” said Michelle Fradin.
Adding to this, some users on Reddit have noted how AI-powered shopping could change the landscape. One user commented, “ChatGPT has the potential to change the way we shop online, especially if it integrates seamlessly with platforms like Shopify. It feels like this was part of the plan all along.” Another user emphasized, “The value added here isn’t payment processing, it’s having an AI that can find exactly what you need and then handle checkout without fuss.”
Another major thing will be how these AI platforms balance making money with fairness. Both Google and Amazon have a history of using their power to favor certain products and charging sellers high fees to keep visibility. OpenAI’s promise to keep results organic and transparent is encouraging, but as they scale, they will need to maintain those principles to earn trust from both merchants and shoppers.
