01/10/25
8'
Conversational artificial intelligence is no longer limited to generating text. It is now entering a new phase: conversational commerce. Since late April 2025, OpenAI has introduced Chat GPT Shopping, a feature that allows users to search, compare, and buy products directly within ChatGPT, without using a traditional search engine or e-commerce platform.
This development marks a profound shift in consumer digital habits and, more importantly, a strategic turning point for brands, retailers, and digital marketers.
With ChatGPT Shopping, online purchasing becomes conversational. Users can now make simple requests such as: “Which coffee machine would you recommend for under €100?” or “Show me trendy white trainers,” and receive a tailored selection of products with comprehensive information in return.
Each result comes with a detailed product card: images, price, customer reviews, technical specifications, and sometimes even tags like “Popular” or “Best value for money”. The aim is to simplify the search phase while intelligently guiding the user’s decision.
This experience is powered by real-time analysis of purchase intent, based on several combined signals: query content, previous interactions, commercial relevance, and product popularity on merchant sites. Unlike traditional search engines, results are neither sponsored nor promotional (at least for now).
In most cases today, when a user interacts with ChatGPT Shopping, they are still redirected to the merchant’s website to complete the purchase. The assistant acts as a smart recommendation engine, capable of simplifying the discovery phase and guiding users to the right product, but not handling the transaction directly.
More innovative still: a beta version of the feature now allows users to complete purchases without ever leaving ChatGPT. Thanks to direct integration with Shopify’s payment module, the assistant now covers the entire e-commerce journey from product discovery to transaction, within a seamless, uninterrupted interface.
Leak of a code demonstrating the possibility of making a purchase with ChatGPT
Source testingcatalog.com
In September 2025, OpenAI unveiled a decisive advancement: Instant Checkout, powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol co-developed with Stripe. This new standard enables users not only to discover but also to purchase products directly within ChatGPT, in just a few taps. Starting with Etsy sellers in the United States and soon expanding to millions of Shopify merchants such as Glossier, SKIMS, and Spanx, Instant Checkout transforms ChatGPT into a true end-to-end shopping interface.
Unlike the first beta integrations, the Agentic Commerce Protocol introduces an open standard for AI commerce. It allows AI agents, users, and businesses to collaborate securely while keeping merchants in control of their payments, order management, and customer relationship. For shoppers, the experience is frictionless: search, compare, and buy without leaving the conversation. For merchants, it means a direct connection to hundreds of millions of active ChatGPT users while maintaining their existing backend and payment systems.
This milestone marks the beginning of agentic commerce: a future where conversational AI doesn’t just recommend products but actively handles transactions, reshaping how and where purchase decisions are made.
This evolution raises key questions for retail and e-commerce professionals:
In the long term, generative AI (currently ChatGPT) could become a primary acquisition channel on par with Google or Amazon. This will require a reinvention of visibility strategies, as well as an adaptation of product feeds, descriptions, and structured data (images, reviews, dynamic pricing).
This upheaval in online product search is giving rise to a new area of expertise: GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization. Much like SEO (Search Engine Optimization) aims to rank websites on Google, GEO aims to maximise brand visibility within AI-generated responses from tools like ChatGPT.
But unlike SEO, which follows the rules of classic ranking algorithms, GEO demands adaptation to a generative, conversational logic. Here, AI doesn’t merely index pages. It synthesises answers based on purchase intent, drawing from a multitude of signals. To be surfaced and recommended, a product must meet several criteria:
Some agencies and platforms are already taking up the challenge. JVWEB, for instance, is structuring its offering around GEO, approaching it as the SEO equivalent for generative AI. Havas Market, meanwhile, is developing tools that analyse brand visibility and performance across AI-powered interfaces to optimise activation strategies on these new channels.
GEO is fast becoming a discipline in its own right. Soon, the challenge won’t just be to rank on Google, but to make your products understandable and attractive to an AI that communicates with consumers in real time.
The launch of ChatGPT Shopping isn’t just a one-off technological innovation. It reflects a broader trend: a fundamental transformation of purchase journeys and decision-making interfaces.
Until now, product search followed a well-trodden path: search engines (like Google), comparison tools, marketplaces (Amazon, Cdiscount, etc.), followed by product page browsing. This process, fragmented, ad-saturated, and optimised more for conversion than clarity, is now showing its limits compared to a new promise: AI-assisted shopping.
With a smooth, personalised interface free from commercial distractions, ChatGPT Shopping redefines the user experience. In just a few conversational lines, a user can:
This new model has the potential to massively divert traffic from traditional channels:
This shift raises a vital strategic question: where will future purchase decisions actually be made?
If the answer becomes “within an AI-powered conversational agent”, then brands, distributors, and retailers must adapt their strategies. That means:
Finally, one of the most critical issues could be control over the purchase funnel, now concentrated in a single interface. If ChatGPT ultimately enables full transaction completion directly in the assistant (via Shopify or others), then the current e-commerce model must be reimagined: fewer product pages, more intelligent interfaces; fewer click-based acquisitions, more presence in generated responses.
The brands that adapt early to this new paradigm will gain a clear competitive edge. Those who wait risk losing visibility to competitors who’ve already learned to speak the language of AI.
For brands, the message is clear: be present where purchasing decisions are now made. And that also means integrating into conversational ecosystems.
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