Highlights:
- Shopify integration changes e-commerce game
- Agentic commerce brings conversational shopping
- Merchants stay in full control
- AI shifts product discovery forever
More than 700 million people use ChatGPT every week. Starting today, they can buy stuff with just a click.
OpenAI just launched Instant Checkout. Ask ChatGPT for “running shoes under $100” or “gifts for a ceramics lover,” and it shows you products.
See something you like? Click “Buy.” Confirm your details. Done. No new tabs, no redirects, no leaving the conversation.
Right now, the platform available for U.S sellers is Etsy. The next step is Shopify and thousands of merchants are coming next. Glossier, SKIMS, Spanx, Vuori, Steve Madden. This is commerce at scale, happening inside the app people already open multiple times a day.
Did The Death of Traditional E-Commerce Just Got Real?
When you ask ChatGPT a shopping question, it does not show you ads. The results are organic that are ranked by relevance. No sponsored things…
Buying Something? Just Two Taps Away!
You get a “Buy” button. Tap it. The chat switches to checkout mode. You see your shipping address, payment method, order total. Confirm. Done.
The seller will then handle everything else. Payment processing, shipping, returns, customer service. ChatGPT just passes information to them. It will not be storing inventory or managing logistics. It connects you with the seller and just get done with its work.
Your Prices Won’t Change (For Now)
You pay the same price you’d pay anywhere else even on the brand websites themselves. The merchant pays a small fee to OpenAI for purchases. Supporting Instant Checkout does not make products rank higher. For OpenAI, relevance drives everything.
Shopify Just Dropped a Bomb on Every Other E-Commerce Platform
The Etsy integration is cool. But Shopify? It has nearly changed everything.
Shopify powers millions of online stores. When Shopify sellers log into ChatGPT, millions of products become instantly available. Real-time inventory, pricing, product images, variants. All uploaded directly into ChatGPT.
Tobi Lütke Couldn’t Keep This Secret Anymore
Tobi Lütke, Shopify’s CEO, has been talking about this update for some months now. A few days before the announcement, he tweeted: “We’ve been working with OpenAI for quite some time so people can search and buy products in chat, and it’s something we’ve had a hard time keeping quiet.”
Vanessa Lee, Shopify’s VP of Product, says people are discovering products in AI conversations now, not just through search or ads. This lets merchants show up naturally in those moments. Shoppers can buy without breaking their flow.
Merchants Get a Money Printer (With Zero Extra Work)
Their store name shows up at checkout. Orders go directly into their Shopify admin with full attribution and transparent fees. They remain the seller of record, own the customer relationship, and control whether shoppers check out through ChatGPT or get redirected to their store.
Colleen Waters from Steve Madden: “Being on Shopify means we can automatically be wherever our customers are shopping, including inside AI conversations. That lets us stay focused on our brand and customers while staying at the forefront of commerce.”
No extra work. No new platform to learn. Just another place their products show up when people are ready to buy.
OpenAI Just Open-Sourced the Future of Shopping
OpenAI built something called the Agentic Commerce Protocol with Stripe. Then they open-sourced the entire thing.
Any merchant, any developer, any platform can use it. OpenAI released full documentation and opened applications for merchants who want to integrate.
One Line of Code Changes Everything
It works across different platforms and payment processors. Merchants don’t need to switch their backend. Integration happens fast. For Stripe customers, it takes one line of code. Merchants stay in complete control of the customer relationship throughout the entire purchase journey.
How Money Flows Without Breaking Anything?
You place an order. ChatGPT sends the details directly to the merchant’s end. It is on the sellers end whether they accept or decline the order, process payment through whatever provider they already use, and handle the inventory like they normally do.
Merchant uses a payment method other than Stripe? They can still join the platform. Stripe built a Shared Payment Token API specifically for this. There’s also a Delegated Payments Spec in the protocol for merchants who want total control over their payment procedure.
Any seller can join without changing their payment method or changing how they do business.
This Has Just Begun And Spreading Fast
Right now, you can only buy one item at a time. Multi-item shopping carts are coming soon. More merchants. International options beyond the U.S.
The 20-Year Shopping Model Just Got Destroyed in 30 Seconds
Seven hundred million people per week are already having conversations with ChatGPT. Now those conversations can end in purchases.
For the last twenty years, online shopping has worked like this:
- Google something
- Click through search results
- Open multiple tabs
- Compare prices
- Navigate to a product page
- Add to cart
- Go to checkout
- Enter shipping info
- Enter payment info
- Finally buy the thing
ChatGPT compresses all of that. “I need running shoes for flat feet under $100.” ChatGPT shows options. You pick one. You buy it. Done in thirty seconds.
Why The Search Engines Suddenly Started Looking Ancient?
This model does not need search engines. It does not need you clicking through ten different websites. It removes almost all the friction between wanting something and buying it.
Shopping online has been transactional for decades. Impersonal, isolated, frustrating. You navigate category pages and filter menus trying to find what you want.
AI conversations bring back the personal element. You describe what you need. ChatGPT suggests options. You pick what makes sense. It feels more like talking to someone who gets it than fighting with a website.
Welcome to the Agentic Commerce Revolution
Vanessa Lee calls this “agentic commerce.” Transactions happening directly within AI conversations. The AI acts as your agent facilitating the purchase. Not directing you elsewhere. Not generating links. Actually completing the transaction right there.
For Shopify merchants, this means showing up where shoppers are already hanging out and having conversations about what to buy. Shopify handles the technical complexity. Merchants just keep doing what they do.
The Questions Everyone’s Avoiding
Is Google Shopping Dead?
Not immediately. But it creates real competition. If people get personalized recommendations and instant checkout through ChatGPT, clicking through search results starts feeling like extra work.
Google’s not going to take this lying down. Expect them to roll out something similar fast.
Are Brand Websites About to Become Irrelevant?
Merchants still own the customer relationship and control the experience. But if transactions happen inside ChatGPT, websites become less central to the buying process.
That shift could help or hurt depending on how much a brand relies on their site for storytelling. Glossier built their entire brand on their website experience. Now people might just buy their products through ChatGPT without ever seeing that carefully crafted brand world.
Will ChatGPT Start Playing Favorites for Money?
OpenAI insists rankings are purely relevance-based. Supporting Instant Checkout does not boost products in results.
Keeping that promise as the platform grows and revenue becomes a bigger factor? That’s the real test. Facebook said the same thing about the News Feed once.
What Happens When Your Order Goes Wrong?
All handled by the merchant through their existing systems. ChatGPT isn’t taking on any of those headaches. It’s just facilitating the transaction.
Which means when something goes wrong, you are dealing with the merchant, not OpenAI. Good to know upfront.
The Internet Just Changed (Whether you are Ready or Not)
Shopping has always been conversational. You ask friends for recommendations. You describe problems to store clerks and get suggestions. The internet made shopping transactional instead. you are on your own navigating websites trying to figure out what works.
Three Companies Just Rewrote the Rules
AI brings the conversation back while keeping the convenience and scale of online shopping. ChatGPT becomes that knowledgeable friend you rely on for something that you’re looking for.
For merchants, this is a distribution that didn’t exist last year. Shopify has mentioned that shopping happens wherever a conversations happen.
According to OpenAI, AI assistants have become a very important part of our daily life.
The shift is already happening. People are discovering products through AI conversations instead of search engines. Now they can buy them there too. No redirecting towards other links. Just search, find, buy.
Whether this becomes the dominant way people shop online or just another channel depends on how well it actually works. How accurate are the recommendations? How smooth is the checkout? How much do people trust ChatGPT to handle their purchases?
We will find out really soon!
