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| ChatGPT's Shopping Capabilities |
Table of Contents
OpenAI has expanded its retail-focused capabilities on ChatGPT by introducing a standalone shopping assistant, known as “shopping research,” for users in the United States. The new tool helps people compare products, discover gift ideas, and spot worthwhile deals with much less effort.
ChatGPT will ask clarifying questions, pull in product details—such as price, reviews, specs—and build a personalized buyer’s guide. When you ask a shopping-related question (e.g. “find me a good cordless vacuum for under $200”), ChatGPT can show a carousel of product options with images, details, and links to where you can buy.
In addition to that, OpenAI also has "Instant Checkout." The Instant Checkout is another retail tool on ChatGPT that streamlines shopping on the AI app. The ChatGPT's Instant Checkout is powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol with Stripe.
With that being said, it's worth noting that you can only buy from U.S.-based Etsy sellers directly in ChatGPT currently. Another thing you should also take note of is that shopping on ChatGPT supports only single-item purchases for now, and according how OpenAI is planning it, the company will expand shopping to more merchants—like Shopify—and more regions later.
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| Selecting Budget on Shopping Research |
For most products, ChatGPT will redirect you to the merchant’s site to complete the purchase. This is because the shopping research, according to OpenAI, "might make mistakes about product details like price and availability." So, the company says it's wise for buyers to "visit the merchant site for the most accurate details."
Shopping on ChatGPT
Shopping on OpenAI's ChatGPT is a simple task to perform. First of all, you must be in eligible country, and for now, users in the US are the only eligible people currently. Another thing you must keep in mind is that shopping research is currently only supporting Etsy for now. OpenAI has promised to expand this service to more countries and more merchants.
So once all these criterias are noted, we can then proceed to shopping on ChatGPT without interference. Now, follow these steps to compare your favorite products and eventually order for it on ChatGPT:
Login to your ChatGPT account and choose "Shopping Research" from the plus icon "+" menu. Next, type in your query. E.g., help me find a powerful new laptop, the AI chatbot will bring out some products and show you their—such as spec, prices, and other factors you can use to compare the products.
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| Entering Query For Best Comparisons |
You can also input your budget and ChatGPT will know what to do. Another feature the shopping research is offering on ChatGPT is that it can help you find similar products, shop for gifts, and track down deals. For instance, you can snap a sneaker and prompt ChatGPT to help you find a lookalike products that's below $120.
Meanwhile, as you're entering your prompts, ChatGPT will ask you follow up questions to clarify and understand what you really want so that it can provide you with the best recommendations—such as best products and comparisons.
ChatGPT Shopping Features
It's important to let you know that shopping research and instant checkout are not the only retail tools that OpenAI is using to facilitate shopping on ChatGPT—there are more than 5 tools and the company is planning some upcoming shopping features in the AI chatbot.
In addition to instant checkout and shopping research, there are:
- Enhanced ChatGPT Search With Shopping Results.
- Personalization via Memory.
- Interactive and Iterative Product Research.
- Transparency and Trust Features.
- Agentic Commerce Protocol for Merchants.
- Ad-Free Shopping Experience.
These features (or tools) are actually what ChatGPT is using to facilitate real-time shopping on the platform. Shopping Research is the latest among all, and the feature is powered by a variant of GPT-5 mini designed to excel specifically at shopping-related tasks.
The upcoming shopping OpenAI is planning on launching in ChatGPT includes:
- Multi-Item Cart Support: Currently, you cannot add more than one product before you pay because the Instant Checkout that facilitate payments only supports single-item purchases.
- Product Discovery via Shopify Data: OpenAI is planning on making Shopify join Etsy on ChatGPT. The company says Shopify integration will let ChatGPT's search shopping results become richer becausereal-time product inventory, images, prices, and variants will be sourced directly from Shopify merchants.
- Agentic Payments for Local or Regional Markets: There are signs of agentic payment partnerships in other regions: e.g., NPCI (India) + Razorpay + OpenAI working on a UPI-based “Agentic Payments” system for ChatGPT.
- More Payment Options: Currently you can only pay through cards, and other methods like Apple Pay, and Google Pay, and that's if you're shopping directly from ChatGPT. You can only enjoy these payments on ChatGPT because its Instant Checkout is powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), a standard co-developed by OpenAI and Stripe. However, OpenAI is planning PayPal integration into Instant Checkout as well. This will bring more payment options for users inside ChatGPT.
- More Merchant Platforms: Because ChatGPT uses the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), more merchants (beyond just Etsy and Shopify) can potentially be onboarded over time. But currently, Etsy is still the only e-commerce platform available on the AI chatbot for US-based customers.
- And Global Expansion: OpenAI is working on making shopping features available to more countries around the world.
Available Shopping Features
1. Enhanced ChatGPT Search With Shopping Results
This ChatGPT shopping tool works in the sense that when you ask ChatGPT to find you a product, this search tool will allow the AI chatbot to show product cards, and the cards will contains contents like images, prices, reviews, and links to retailers.
You can click through from those product cards to external retailer sites to purchase. These aren’t just ad listings: according to OpenAI, the results are independently selected, not paid ads. The shopping categories covered at launch include fashion, beauty, home goods, and electronics.
2. Personalization via Memory
If you have your ChatGPT account's memory turned on, this shopping tool will use your past preferences to improve shopping suggestions whenever you search product-related queries. For example: if you’ve previously talked about gaming, and now you ask for a laptop, ChatGPT can factor that into its recommendations.
3. Interactive and Iterative Product Research
In shopping research, as ChatGPT finds products, it shows options in real time. You can say things like “Not interested” or “More like this,” and it will refine its search dynamically. After it runs the research, it gives you a personalized buyer’s guide: key picks, trade-offs, side-by-side comparisons, and other relevant products.
4. Transparency and Trust Features
Shopping research cites where info comes from, such as retailer pages, reviews, specs, to help you trust the recommendations. This tool will warn you about the product you're seeing— e.g., if the product prices, stock, or other details might be out of date; you should check with the merchant before buying.
5. Agentic Commerce Protocol (for Merchants)
On the merchant side, there’s a system called the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP)—powered by Stripe. It is an open-source protocol that enables ChatGPT to handle commerce effectively. ACP lets merchants integrate with ChatGPT—without changing their backend systems—for Instant Checkout.
This means that eligible Shopify (and other) merchants can have their products appear natively in chat, and users can buy seamlessly. It works across payment methods like cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc., and allows merchants to have full in control of their inventory such as handling orders, payments, fulfillment, returns, and invoices—ChatGPT is just the bridge.
6. Ad-Free Shopping Experience
ChatGPT's Ad-free shopping is the shopping experience that is designed to be ad-free. The product suggestions are based on relevance and quality, not paid placements. This could make discovery more trustworthy and user-centered.
7. Shopping Research
Like I have explained earlier, shopping research is the latest shopping tool on ChatGPT. It's a dedicated mode where ChatGPT asks you clarifying questions—including your budget, use-case, and features—to understand the exact product you want to buy. The tool searches across the internet (retailers, reviews, specs) to collect up-to-date product info such as prices, availability, reviews, and images of the product.
As it finds products, you can interact (e.g. mark “not interested” or “more like this”) to guide the research in real time. After gathering info, it gives you a personalized buyer’s guide: top picks, trade-offs, side-by-side comparisons, and links to sellers. It also uses your ChatGPT memory (if turned on) to tailor recommendations to your past preferences. Let's just say this feature uses all the shopping tools on ChatGPT to provide enhanced shopping results for users.
8. Instant Checkout
Instant Checkout lets users complete a purchase directly inside ChatGPT (in-chat buying) without leaving the conversation. This feature is powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), a standard co-developed by OpenAI and Stripe. Currently, Instant Checkout is supporting single-item purchases.
When you “Buy,” you confirm order details, shipping, payment, and then pay using saved card or express pay methods. It's important to note that merchants process payment and fulfillment themselves, ChatGPT just facilitates the transaction. Another thing you must note is that ChatGPT will asks for your explicit confirmation before purchase, and only shares minimal info needed to complete the order.
Final Notes
OpenAI says shopping features on ChatGPT are being improved everyday and these tools can give almost perfect results in categories like home appliances and electronics, and beauty and cosmetics. The company emphasized that products that categorized in these categories are known for having many details and specs the AI model can compare to generate comprehensive comparisons and recommendations.
However, it's worth noting that as OpenAI is running the race on improving shopping capabilities on ChatGPT, so as competitors like Google are aggressively running the race also to add more advanced AI shopping features on their model to rival ChatGPT. Only time will tell who wins the race. But for now, I give it to ChatGPT on this shopping capabilities—the AI model is currently leading the race.
