OpenAI is putting checkout inside ChatGPT. Starting Monday, logged-in ChatGPT Free, Plus and Pro users in the United States can complete single-item purchases from US-based Etsy sellers without leaving the chat. The company says more than one million Shopify merchants, including Glossier, SKIMS, Spanx and Vuori, are coming soon. Payment options include Apple Pay, Google Pay, Stripe or a credit card.

The system runs on the Agentic Commerce Protocol, which OpenAI built with Stripe and is open-sourcing. Stripe issues a scoped Shared Payment Token so ChatGPT can initiate a payment without exposing the buyer’s credentials; the merchant still accepts or declines the order, charges the card, handles tax, fulfillment and returns. OpenAI says it will take a small fee on completed sales and that results are organic and unsponsored. Fees are set in confidential contracts with Etsy and Shopify; OpenAI declined to give details. Users pay nothing extra, the company says.

The financial reaction was immediate: Etsy closed up nearly 16%, and Shopify closed up more than 6%. TechCrunch says the launch could reshape retail discovery, and it notes that Perplexity introduced a similar in-chat shopping and payments feature last year while Microsoft offers merchant storefronts through Copilot. ChatGPT surpassed 700 million weekly active users in August, and Fradin says a huge portion of the questions people are asking are related to shopping and commerce in some capacity.