It was only a matter of time before ChatGPT introduced shopping capabilities to its Pandora’s box of useful tricks. It’s all thanks to an innovative OpenAI protocol called the Agentic Commerce Protocol, built with Stripe. Right now, all U.S. ChatGPT users, regardless of subscription tier, are able to shop items from Etsy, with support for millions of other Shopify merchants and other vendors coming soon. If you’re using an Android smartphone or tablet, using the Instant Checkout should feel just as intuitive as searching for products and services — only now you’ll be able to make purchases directly through the AI chatbot.
Here’s how it works. When you launch the Android version of the ChatGPT app, enter a prompt like “Find me a Star Wars poster on Etsy for less than $100.” The chatbot will come up with a list of products to sort through, and you should see a “Buy” button next to some of these entries, which means the item is Instant Checkout-ready. Just tap “Buy,” and you’ll be taken to a checkout screen to confirm your order details. ChatGPT will default to whatever payment method its paid subscription users have on file, but you’ll also be able to use an alternative one. If all the details check out (pun intended), simply tap “Confirm purchase.”
Finalizing your purchase and following up
Once you’ve made your purchase, you should receive a confirmation email from the Etsy seller. You’ll also be able to review your past purchases made through ChatGPT by tapping Settings and selecting Orders. At this time, the Instant Checkout feature is limited to one item per transaction, but OpenAI plans to add multi-item carts, as well as additional merchants and regions (the feature is currently limited to U.S. users only) in the weeks and months to come.
It’s important to keep in mind that for all Instant Checkout transactions, ChatGPT is only responsible for delivering a seamless and encrypted checkout process; all post-transaction dealings, like seller questions, shipping updates, or refunds, are handled directly by the merchant. In our example “Star Wars posters on Etsy” prompt, the “Etsy” portion isn’t necessary, but it helps to nab the most Instant Checkout results for the time being. Until Instant Checkout rolls out to other merchants, all non-Etsy results will just provide generic links to the merchant site. It’s also not guaranteed that every Etsy listing will have a “Buy” option.
An exciting future for the Instant Checkout feature
OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol is paving the way for e-commerce, both for the foreseeable future and beyond. It’s also nice to see that OpenAI put a lot of thought into user security at this stage of the game. According to the company’s press release on the new protocol, users are explicitly in control of each step of the transaction process. All payment tokens are encrypted, and data sharing between the user and merchant is kept to a bare minimum.
As time goes on, we expect to see even more merchants and payment processors added to the Agentic Commerce Protocol. We’re also willing to bet that search results will improve, because, at this time, even specific “Etsy-only” queries have returned a slew of generic links — some even without shopping highlights.
It will be interesting to see what Instant Checkout is capable of by the holiday season. Combined with ChatGPT’s memory recall capabilities, gift shopping might be as easy as saying, “Find me waterproof, vinyl Disney Parks stickers from that shop I love.” After all, nothing says “Christmas” like an AI chatbot taking care of your gift shopping.
