According to Inc, in October, OpenAI announced ChatGPT Apps, self-contained programs the AI can use. Now, the company is expanding its Instant Checkout feature, introduced in September, to work within these apps. Previously, it only worked in ChatGPT’s own shopping search results. The system is powered by the new Agentic Commerce Protocol, an open-source standard developed by OpenAI and Stripe. This protocol lets AI agents share payment and shipping info between ChatGPT, merchants, and consumers. Merchants pay a small, undisclosed fee for each completed Instant Checkout purchase.
The End of the Checkout Redirect
Here’s the thing about most “AI shopping” so far: it’s been a fancy link generator. You ask ChatGPT for a recommendation, it gives you a link to Target or Instacart, and you’re unceremoniously dumped onto a website to fumble with your cart and credit card. That break in the flow is where most potential sales die. Instant Checkout, especially now inside dedicated apps, aims to fix that. It’s about keeping you in the conversational interface, making the purchase feel like just another step in the dialogue. That’s a huge shift. Basically, they’re turning ChatGPT from a search engine into a storefront—or more accurately, a mall where different brands have their own AI-powered kiosks.
Why Stripe Makes This a Big Deal
The partnership with Stripe is the real secret sauce here. Think about it. OpenAI is brilliant at language models, but they’re not a payments company. By building the Agentic Commerce Protocol with Stripe, they’re leveraging the infrastructure that already powers millions of online businesses. That means trust and scale are baked in from day one. Merchants already using Stripe can probably plug in with relative ease. And for users, your payment details are handled by a system you (and your credit card company) already trust, not some new, unproven wallet from an AI lab. It’s a clever move that sidesteps one of the biggest hurdles to in-chat commerce: security and friction.
Where This Is All Heading
So what’s the endgame? I think we’re seeing the blueprint for the “AI agent economy.” ChatGPT won’t just be an app you query; it will be a platform hosting countless specialized agents that can actually do things for you, including spending your money. Order groceries, book travel, buy clothes—all through conversation without ever touching a traditional website or app icon. The “small fee” OpenAI and Stripe collect on each transaction is how they monetize this entire ecosystem. It’s a classic platform play: provide the venue and the plumbing, then take a cut of all the commerce that flows through it. The big question is, will users want to shop this way? Or is the separation between “chatting” and “spending” a psychological boundary we prefer to keep?
The Broader Platform Shift
Look, this isn’t just about shopping. It’s about redefining what an interface is. For decades, we’ve tapped and clicked on graphical UIs. Now, the interface is a conversation. And if you can complete a complex transaction like checkout within that conversation, you can do almost anything. This is the kind of infrastructure shift that creates entirely new business models. While this article focuses on consumer retail, the underlying protocol—enabling trusted, automated transactions between AI agents and systems—has implications far beyond buying socks. It’s about enabling AI to act as a true intermediary in the digital world. That’s a powerful, and maybe a little unsettling, new reality.
