OpenAI is backing away from putting checkout directly inside ChatGPT. Instead, purchases will shift to retailer apps that connect to ChatGPT, The Information reported.
Why we care. ChatGPT aims to be more than a discovery engine. Right now, though, product discovery inside ChatGPT is gaining traction faster than purchases. That suggests AI-powered shopping is only influencing the consideration stage (at least for now), not driving conversions.
What happened. OpenAI had planned to let shoppers buy products directly from listings in ChatGPT search results. Instead, an OpenAI spokesperson said that Instant Checkout is moving to Apps, where purchases happen inside connected services rather than natively in ChatGPT.
- The company will now prioritize product search and discovery inside ChatGPT.
- It will also keep working with Stripe on the Agentic Commerce Protocol to support app-based transactions.
What changed: OpenAI found that users research products in ChatGPT but don’t complete purchases there. Only a small number of merchants were actively using native ChatGPT checkout, according to the report.
- In September, OpenAI positioned Instant Checkout as a big commerce opportunity. At the time, it said U.S. users could buy from Etsy sellers inside ChatGPT, with plans to expand to Shopify merchants, add multi-item carts, and roll out beyond the U.S.
Meanwhile. Shopify president Harley Finkelstein said this week that only about a dozen Shopify merchants were using AI tools, despite Shopify supporting integrations with ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot. That’s tiny relative to Shopify’s overall merchant base.
What to watch. Can OpenAI make ChatGPT more valuable as a shopping discovery engine without owning the final transaction? Also, how does OpenAI’s commerce strategy intersect with its advertising ambitions? If transactions stay outside ChatGPT, monetizing product discovery through ads could become even more important.
Why this is happening. Two forces are slowing agentic commerce, according to Leigh McKenzie, director of online visibility at Semrush: infrastructure and trust. Real-time catalog normalization across tens of millions of SKUs is a decade-scale problem Google already solved with Merchant Center, and consumers still default to checkout flows they trust — Apple Pay, Google Wallet, and Amazon one-click.
The report. OpenAI Scales Back Shopping Plans for ChatGPT (subscription required)
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