OpenAI has launched a new feature, Instant Checkout, allowing U.S. ChatGPT users to purchase items directly within the chatbot.
The move starts with Etsy sellers, with Shopify merchants such as Glossier, SKIMS, and Spanx due to follow.
According to OpenAI, the feature currently supports single-item purchases but will expand to multi-item carts and new regions in the coming months.
The system is powered by the open-sourced ‘Agentic Commerce Protocol’, co-developed with Stripe, which enables AI agents, people, and businesses to complete purchases securely.
Stripe users can enable it with minimal code changes, while others can connect through Stripe’s ‘Shared Payment Token API’ or by adopting the ‘Delegated Payments’ specification.
Merchant Control and Customer Experience
In practice, shoppers can move from product discovery to purchase without leaving the chat.
Recommendations appear organically, based on relevance rather than sponsored placement, with buyers able to confirm payment and shipping details directly in the interface.
Merchants remain the merchant of record — handling payments, fulfillment, returns, and customer support using their existing systems.
OpenAI said that while merchants pay a small fee on completed purchases, customer prices are unaffected.
The Strategic Implications
For enterprises, the development is about more than convenience. It reflects how ChatGPT is consolidating the buyer journey, taking on a dual role as both search engine and storefront.
This is part of a broader industry trend toward machine customers — AI agents that can act and transact on behalf of humans.
Gartner recently forecast that half of CEOs already have, or plan to develop, a strategy for machine customers.
CX Today has also reported on Google’s experiments with machine-to-machine customer service, which analysts described as an early indicator of this shift.
Questions for CX Leaders
The announcement raises key questions for customer experience leaders. If AI platforms such as ChatGPT mediate the entire buyer journey, how do brands maintain control over customer relationships and loyalty? What guardrails will be needed to ensure AI agents make authorised, transparent decisions? And how should channel strategies evolve if significant volumes of traffic and sales are redirected through third-party platforms rather than direct e-commerce sites?
Early Days, Bigger Picture
OpenAI has described Instant Checkout as a first step, with more functionality planned.
While the technical integration may be straightforward — particularly for merchants already using Stripe — the strategic consequences could be far-reaching.
Agentic commerce is no longer a distant prospect. With ChatGPT handling both discovery and purchase, the customer journey is changing shape, and enterprises will need to decide whether to embrace, adapt, or resist a future where AI agents play a central role in commerce. Assuming consumers take it up, that is.
