OpenAI’s efforts to transform ChatGPT into an e-commerce platform are facing challenges, at least for now. On Tuesday, the company announced a shift in strategy, moving away from a feature that allowed users to purchase items directly through the chatbot.
Buy capabilities were introduced in ChatGPT last year, positioning it as a “shopping assistant” connecting consumers to vendors. A feature called “Instant Checkout” was launched in September, aimed at allowing users to discuss purchases with the chatbot, much like a conventional e-commerce site, and add products to a cart within ChatGPT. Purchases were made directly from vendors, with ChatGPT acting as a portal.
However, Instant Checkout hasn’t been successful. On Tuesday, OpenAI announced a scale-back of this feature amidst other updates related to ChatGPT’s shopping experience.
“We’ve found that the initial version of Instant Checkout did not offer the flexibility we aim for, so we’re allowing merchants to use their own checkout experiences while focusing on product discovery,” the company stated in a blog post. OpenAI specified that merchants could still incorporate the feature through apps within ChatGPT.
An OpenAI spokesperson stated the development of Instant Checkout as a standalone feature would be deprioritized, instead focusing on product discovery for consumers. OpenAI will continue supporting various checkout paths, including through merchants’ sites.
The Information and CNBC reported that OpenAI’s new plan allows merchants to create apps within ChatGPT, routing users to checkout on merchants’ websites. A source told The Information that users weren’t using ChatGPT for making purchases, and a study in October found e-commerce sites weren’t profiting significantly from ChatGPT traffic.
Instead of becoming a shopping portal, OpenAI is now shaping ChatGPT into a central hub of consumer information, acting as a research tool for online shoppers deciding what product to buy.
This shopping experience is powered by its Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), an open standard for e-commerce developed with fintech company Stripe. The protocol uses data from participating merchants.
In the future, OpenAI stated ChatGPT would offer more detailed information about products, providing side-by-side pictures and comparative metrics like prices, features, and reviews.