After In-Chat Checkout Struggles, ChatGPT Pivots to 'AI Shopping Assistant' with Product Discovery and Price Comparison

[Ebrun Exclusive] OpenAI recently announced enhancements to the shopping experience within ChatGPT, shifting its focus to product discovery. The update enables users to browse products directly within the chat interface, access real-time product information, and compare prices. Specifically, ChatGPT can now filter and present matching products based on a user's budget, preferences, and constraints. Users can browse relevant information directly or upload an image for ChatGPT to find similar styles. Additionally, ChatGPT can display products side-by-side, listing details such as price, reviews, and features to aid consumer comparison. OpenAI also claims improvements in response speed, relevance, and product coverage, making search results more timely and usable. For example, in a demonstration provided by OpenAI, the previous version of ChatGPT would often analyze a user's query and provide lengthy, unhelpful content before recommending products. The optimized version now pulls real product data, directly displaying images, pricing, and product details, aligning more closely with traditional shopping logic and suggesting more items of potential interest to consumers. "We are gradually phasing out the standalone 'instant checkout' experience in ChatGPT in favor of superior product discovery capabilities and a merchant-led checkout process. Users can discover and evaluate products within ChatGPT, but the actual purchase must be completed on the merchant's own website or app," stated OpenAI. Earlier this month, reports emerged that ChatGPT was adjusting its AI shopping strategy by suspending the in-chat checkout function. This decision was partly due to the feature's performance falling short of expectations. Some market analysts noted that users have not yet developed the habit of making direct purchases within a conversational interface. Walmart, one of the early partners for this feature, reported that the conversion rate for direct purchases within ChatGPT was only about one-third of the rate when users were redirected to Walmart's official website. Consequently, Walmart has begun embedding its own chatbot, Sparky, to guide users from ChatGPT directly to Walmart's platform. "We found that the initial version of the instant checkout feature did not offer the flexibility we aimed for. Therefore, while we focus our efforts on product discovery, we will allow merchants to use their own checkout systems," explained OpenAI. Furthermore, OpenAI announced it is expanding the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) to support product discovery, bringing more complete, relevant, and timely information directly into ChatGPT. Through ACP, merchants can share product data feeds and promotional information, ensuring their catalogs are fully represented within ChatGPT. Over time, ACP will gradually incorporate features like personalized recommendations, local inventory queries, and estimated time of arrival (ETA). On the ChatGPT website, merchants can already register their business and product information. This feature is currently available only to users in the United States. ChatGPT stated that later this year, it plans to launch a merchant platform supporting self-service data integration and expand to more countries and regions. Several major retailers have already integrated ACP to support product discovery, including Target, Sephora, Nordstrom, Lowe’s, Best Buy, The Home Depot, and Wayfair.