OpenAI Says Users Can Now Shop for Etsy Products on ChatGPT

OpenAI plans to add more merchants to Instant Checkout. (Gabby Jones/Bloomberg)

Online shopping is coming to ChatGPT.

On Monday, parent company OpenAI said users are now able to buy items from U.S. Etsy sellers directly on the popular artificial intelligence platform.

Over a million Shopify merchants, including Glossier, Skims, Spanx, and Vuori are coming soon, OpenAI said.

Shopify stock was up 4.9% on the news Monday afternoon, while Etsy jumped 12%.

OpenAI plans to add more merchants to Instant Checkout by open-sourcing the technology that powers the platform’s checkout system.

“This marks the next step in agentic commerce, where ChatGPT doesn’t just help you find what to buy, it also helps you buy it,” OpenAI said Monday.

The process should be seamless for shoppers, the company said. When a user asks a shopping question such as “recommend the best gifts for a runner,” ChatGPT will link to relevant products across the web. Products that support Instant Checkout will let users buy directly on the chat.

Merchants pay a small fee on completed purchases, but the service is free for users, OpenAI said, adding that it won’t affect consumer prices and that Instant Checkout items won’t be preferred in product results.

The move comes at an inflection point for OpenAI as it makes huge investment commitments this year. It is still investor funded, racking up growing losses the more its user base expands, now at 700 million weekly average users. It gets revenue from subscriptions and use-based payments, but the vast majority of ChatGPT users are on the free plan. The usual business model here is e-commerce and advertising. Instant Checkout can be seen through this lens, and we may see advertising in ChatGPT before long.

The shift toward monetization of free users stems from the hiring of Fidji Simo as the OpenAI CEO of applications earlier this year, a role that was created for her. Simo transitioned from Instacart, where she was CEO, and before that she was at Meta for a decade, where she eventually ran the Facebook app. She also sits on the Shopify board of directors. Simo is an executive with deep knowledge of e-commerce and advertising.

Write to Sabrina Escobar at sabrina.escobar@barrons.com