Following the company’s retreat from Instant Checkout, OpenAI recently launched a richer and more visually appealing shopping experience. These are powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), and make it easier for shoppers to discover, research, and compare the products they want to buy.
Richer Shopping Experiences in ChatGPT
After OpenAI moved away from Instant Checkout, the company recently launched a new shopping experience in ChatGPT. According to a blog post about the new launch, the company says it’s making the shopping experience in ChatGPT richer and more visual.
You’re now able to browse products visually in ChatGPT, compare options beside one another, and get detailed and updated information, all without having to jump from tab to tab. You can also upload images as inspiration to look for similar items, and always refine your results through conversation until you find the right product.
Behind the scenes, OpenAI has improved several parts of the shopping experience, including speed, product coverage, and relevance. This helps ensure the results consumers get are more useful and up-to-date, and reduces the need to make additional searches and open fewer tabs.
The experience is also very beneficial to both merchants and shoppers. For shoppers, it turns online shopping and research into a quick and easy process, as opposed to one that’s long and fragmented. For merchants, the experience brings them closer to high-intent shoppers who are nearly ready to make purchases.
These updates are rolling out to ChatGPT Pro, Plus, Go, and Free users now, and the company says that there are more to come as OpenAI invests more in product discovery with ChatGPT.
The Foundation for AI Commerce
OpenAI is expanding the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) to power the experience and support product discovery, bringing more complete, updated, and relevant information into ChatGPT. The ACP will serve as the connective layer between merchants and users.
This works by merchants sharing product feeds and promotions through ACP, so that all product catalogs are represented in ChatGPT. OpenAI supports multiple delivery paths, so merchants are able to participate with systems they already use and are comfortable with.
In the future, the ACP will also act as the foundation for other AI-native commerce experiences, like local availability, ETAs, and personalization.
Many large retailers, such as Target, Sephora, Best Buy, and The Home Depot, have already been integrated into ACP for product discovery. Also, merchants on Shopify already have their product data integrated into ChatGPT through Shopify Catalog, and won’t need to do anything additional.
Bringing Merchants and Users Together
In the post, the company also explains that its mission is to provide the best experience for both consumers and merchants, and that the best consumer experiences are often powered by a deep and strong partnership with merchants.
OpenAI hopes to help merchants build these deep partnerships by offering more options for how they decide to convert customers. The company also admits that the previous Instant Checkout experience didn’t have as much flexibility as the company aims to provide, so OpenAI is allowing merchants to use their own checkouts, while it handles product discovery.
Future Improvements
The company ends the post by saying that, like with other parts of ChatGPT, it’s building the experience iteratively. As a result, OpenAI is always learning from user feedback and early launches to improve the experience over time. Finally, the company says it looks forward to providing more information as the work evolves.
While the experience is still new, and the jury is out on whether it’s popular or not, I think it certainly has a good chance of succeeding. The company is focusing on what it does best, such as product discovery, comparison, and education, and letting merchants handle the checkout process.
I think the visual additions to the experience also go a long way in making it more engaging for shoppers, and the side-by-side comparisons, complete with important information and details, will certainly help simplify the online shopping experience for many people.
