OpenAI’s new Instant Checkout feature is transforming shopping by letting users purchase products directly inside ChatGPT, eliminating the need for external websites or clunky multi-step transaction flows. Announced in September 2025 for U.S. users, this agentic commerce feature—backed by partnerships with Etsy and Shopify and powered by Stripe—immediately sparked excitement in the tech and retail sectors, sending Etsy shares up by 16 percent and signaling a leap forward in conversational AI’s real-world economic impact.
A Seamless Shopping Experience Within Chat
With Instant Checkout, ChatGPT users can now go from product discovery to payment completion without ever leaving the conversational interface. When a shopper makes a request—like “find handmade silver earrings under $100”—ChatGPT responds with curated, unsponsored, relevance-ranked product options across Etsy (and soon, Shopify’s one million U.S. merchants). Items with Instant Checkout functionality include a “Buy” button inside the chat, allowing users to confirm shipping, payment, and complete a single-item purchase instantly.
The technology behind this breakthrough is the open-source Agentic Commerce Protocol, developed with Stripe. This protocol ensures secure communication and payment workflow between the user, ChatGPT, and the merchant’s existing backend—never exposing credit card data, and letting brands easily integrate ChatGPT shopping without changing their infrastructure.
OpenAI’s commerce lead Michelleadin explained the rationale to CNBC: “Our vision for ChatGPT—and much of the technology we develop, particularly ChatGPT—is that it not only delivers information but also aids users in accomplishing tasks in the real world”.
How Instant Checkout Works for Shoppers
- Organic Results Only: ChatGPT product suggestions are unsponsored and based on fit, not ads.
- Ease of Use: Confirm order, shipping, and payment details in seconds, with no redirects.
- Supported Payments: Stripe enables Apple Pay, Google Pay, cards, and subscription billing. Plus and Pro ChatGPT users have their cards on file.
- One-Item Per Order: Currently, users can buy one product per order. Multi-item cart support will follow.
- No Added Fees for Shoppers: Merchants pay a small commission on completed sales, but there are no extra fees, hidden charges, or price differences for buyers.
Shoppers retain the same protections and support as when buying directly through Etsy or Shopify. Sellers handle fulfillment, returns, and support; ChatGPT simply facilitates a smoother onramp.
Merchant and Market Impact
For Etsy, the impact was immediate. Etsy’s share price spiked more than 16 percent on the news, the largest one-day jump for the stock this year. Shopify merchants—ranging from giants like Glossier, Skims, and Spanx to indie sellers—are set to join the program through autumn 2025.
Etsy’s Chief Product and Technology Officer Rafe Colburn commented, “As a marketplace of over 5 million creative entrepreneurs, it’s our job to remove barriers for shoppers so they can easily discover and be delighted by our sellers’ special items”.
OpenAI collects a fee only from merchants, not users, and all code for the Agentic Commerce Protocol is open source. This means any online retailer—large or small—can integrate with ChatGPT and get straight to the sale. Products enabled for Instant Checkout have no search favoritism, but ChatGPT will display them when relevant, considering price, availability, seller reputation, and shipping.
E-Commerce Disruption and the Future of Shopping
OpenAI’s move is a direct challenge to incumbent platforms like Google, Amazon, and even traditional e-commerce sites, compressing the entire shopping funnel inside a single conversation. Market strategists and tech analysts predict that the ability to move from inspiration to checkout in mere seconds will raise consumer expectations and demand new strategies for shopper engagement and brand discoverability.
In addition to the U.S. rollout, OpenAI is planning multi-item cart support, international expansion, and further personalization as user adoption and feedback roll in.
As this new era of agentic, AI-powered commerce unfolds, brands and merchants able to “speak the language of AI” and join conversational shopping will gain a clear market edge, as interactions and purchases increasingly happen where inspiration begins: inside the chat itself.
