OpenAI has quietly moved into commerce. On Sept 30 2025 OpenAI launched a shopping feature inside ChatGPT and is pursuing strategic acquisitions to expand merchant data and product catalogs. The change aims to let users discover and buy products directly through the assistant with an instant checkout flow, opening new monetization routes for OpenAI and fresh channels for merchants and SMBs.

Background

Search and discovery remain friction points for online buying. Traditional marketplaces and search engines route users through listings, reviews and paid placements while social platforms fold commerce into feeds. AI assistants until now focused on conversation, content generation and task automation. By embedding product discovery and checkout inside ChatGPT OpenAI addresses the gap between intent and transaction, a core idea behind conversational commerce and AI commerce trends in 2025.

Key details

• Instant checkout inside ChatGPT: Users can request products and complete purchases without leaving the chat interface, a clear use case for high intent buyers.
• Agentic commerce protocol: A new protocol enables secure in chat purchases and integrations with payment and merchant systems to simplify buy with ChatGPT flows.
• New monetization routes: OpenAI plans to earn via affiliate fees and merchant partnerships rather than relying only on subscriptions and API licensing.
• Strategic acquisitions: The company is targeting firms that provide product data, catalogs and marketplace infrastructure to scale inventory coverage and ranking quality.
• SMB opportunity: Small and medium businesses can access high intent buyers inside ChatGPT but will need to share structured product data and negotiate referral terms.

Implications for business and consumers

• For consumers: Convenience improves as the assistant shortens buying cycles. Users will watch for clear privacy and data handling practices and transparent ranking between paid and organic results.
• For merchants: Merchant integration matters. Retailers should prepare product feeds for conversational queries and consider how referral fees will affect margins.
• For platforms: Search engines and marketplaces face a new aggregator that could disintermediate listing based monetization if discovery is controlled inside AI assistants.
• For regulators: Antitrust and consumer protection focus will likely increase around platform neutrality, fee structures and preferential placement of partnered inventory.

Practical steps for businesses

• Evaluate presence: Make product data available via structured catalogs, APIs and formats optimized for conversational commerce so ChatGPT can surface accurate results.
• Negotiate terms: Expect talks on affiliate fees, data sharing and dispute handling. Early partnerships may win better placement but read long term contract terms carefully.
• Prioritize trust signals: Clear return policies, verified product information and strong customer service reduce friction in in chat purchases.
• Invest in analytics: Track conversions that originate from ChatGPT to measure ROI and guide bidding or fee decisions for merchant integration.
• Optimize content: Use long tail phrases such as how ChatGPT instant checkout works and secure in chat purchases to match conversational queries and improve discoverability.

Conclusion

OpenAI adding shopping to ChatGPT marks an evolution from assistant to marketplace. If widely adopted the model could reshape how customers discover products and how merchants acquire buyers, lowering technical barriers for some sellers while concentrating discovery power with AI platforms. Businesses should monitor adoption metrics, partnership terms and privacy practices and prepare to engage with AI commerce as both a marketing channel and a transactional partner.