ChatGPT shopping experience overhauled after instant checkout failure

In what will be welcome news for some ecommerce businesses, OpenAI is pivoting away from its Instant Checkout feature in ChatGPT, which only worked with some large stores. The AI tool will instead continue on as a “research-led shopping assistant” for now.

More specifically, OpenAI plans to make the process of browsing for new items easier by helping customers avoid the arduous task of navigating multiple open tabs and online store interfaces.

For SMEs with online stores, it’s another reminder to ensure your content is optimised for AI tools and apps to read it, as we move gradually towards a new, AI-driven era of ecommerce.

So long, Instant Checkout

Until recently, “Instant Checkout” was a feature in ChatGPT that allowed users to check out directly within the Chatbot, rather than having to go to the seller’s page. It only worked with a small cohort of websites, including Etsy and Walmart, and it was only available for selected items listed on them. 

There is only a fleeting mention of the now-defunct tool in the press release issued by OpenAI this week announcing its revamp of its in-app shopping experience. 

“We’ve found that the initial version of Instant Checkout did not offer the level of flexibility that we aspire to provide, so we’re allowing merchants to use their own checkout experiences while we focus our efforts on product discovery,” the explains. 

The long story short is that OpenAI struggled to get the feature off the ground. Challenges included onboarding merchants properly, maintaining accurate product data, allowing multi-item carts, and implementing retailers’ loyalty schemes. 

Hello, product discovery

Instead of pursuing Instant Checkout, OpenAI says it’s now focused on a problem that it claims its AI agents can solve: deciding what to buy. 

It says: “Shopping on the web is easy if you already know what you want. But when you’re still deciding, it often means jumping between tabs, reading the same ‘best of’ lists, and trying to piece together the right answer.” 

The AI agent will now be able to find products based on a prompt or image and by setting parameters, and will then share them. This means customers can browse images of suggested products, do side-by-side comparisons and get information on how to order.

A new phase for ecommerce

ChatGPT and AI tools, more generally, are fundamentally changing the way people search for information. This, along with the continued entrenchment of social media in people’s lives, is having massive ramifications for the way people shop. 

The latest artefact of this shift is the rise of “agentic commerce”, where AI bots do the shopping on your behalf – something payments processor Visa is already preparing for. Another, of course, tools like ChatGPT provide a more seamless product discovery experience free from menu diving and seas of open tabs

Even legacy brands are getting in on the action. John Lewis is now selling directly through TikTok and is focusing closely on ensuring its products are visible via AI apps and search engines. In total, the company is throwing £800 million at its digital transformation strategy. 

The latest news has some instructional elements for SMEs. For one, it seems like ChatGPT misjudged how easy it would be to wade into the direct in-app payments space, and now seems content with being a fancy referral machine. 

So, it’s even more important that your online store is optimised to be read by the AI tools that people will continue to use to guide their shopping experiences, from your “About Us” page to your product descriptions. Otherwise, it’ll become harder and harder to compete.