You can now use ChatGPT to compare and shop for products inside the app

OpenAI will soon let you buy products directly inside ChatGPT. This is becoming a big trend across the tech industry right now as companies try to bake shopping right into their core apps. Google has already been experimenting with letting people buy things straight from AI Mode while Samsung now lets you purchase items directly from images inside your photo gallery.

To make all of this happen OpenAI just announced a new protocol called the Agentic Commerce Protocol. This protocol lets e-commerce sites plug their store inventory directly into the ChatGPT interface, so the AI assistant can base its answers on them.

Before this update, asking the AI for a product recommendation usually gave you a pretty abstract answer. The chatbot would just spit out some basic guidelines on the kinds of features you should look out for. Now you can ask highly specific questions about exactly what you want, and ChatGPT will fire back with actual product recommendations. You will be able to make the purchase of the recommended products right inside the chat interface.

AI will give users multiple products to choose from, so they can compare prices and features. Introducing this protocol along with existing protocols for embedding products into other AI searches will likely spawn an entirely new branch of SEO for e-commerce stores. OpenAI hasn’t announced a partnership with any specific merchants, so product slots inside ChatGPT will be up for grabs for everyone from the start.

Another big goal that the companies are striving for lately is keeping users inside their platforms for as long as possible. As the competition grows fiercer, AI companies in particular are looking to infiltrate every action users take on their devices. OpenAI is already working on a “super app” that will unify all of its services, and adding this shopping experience is just another piece of the puzzle.

These new shopping features are rolling out this week for everyone on the Free and Go tiers as well as Plus and Pro subscribers.