OpenAI Expands eCommerce Plans With PayPal Partnership

PayPal has struck a partnership with OpenAI to embed its digital wallet into ChatGPT.

The arrangement will see PayPal adopt the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) to let users pay for items they find using the artificial intelligence (AI) startup’s flagship product, according to a Tuesday (Oct. 28) news release.

In addition, PayPal says it will support payments processing for merchants leveraging OpenAI Instant Checkout.

“Hundreds of millions of people turn to ChatGPT each week for help with everyday tasks, including finding products they love, and over 400 million use PayPal to shop,” PayPal CEO Alex Chriss said in the news release.

“By partnering with OpenAI and adopting the Agentic Commerce Protocol, PayPal will power payments and commerce experiences that help people go from chat to checkout in just a few taps for our joint customer bases.”

The deal comes as OpenAI is expanding its footprint in the eCommerce space, having recently forged partnerships with Shopify, Etsy and Walmart, the last of which drove Walmart’s stock to a record high following the announcement.

“It’s a whole new paradigm for shopping,” Chriss told CNBC. “It’s hard to imagine that agentic commerce isn’t going to be a big part of the future.”

The announcement also notes that for “the tens of millions of merchants who use PayPal,” ACP will next year bring their product catalogs to ChatGPT commerce.

“PayPal will manage merchant routing, payment validation, and orchestration behind the scenes,” the company said. “This integration will make millions of products discoverable and purchasable through ChatGPT.”

PYMNTS wrote earlier this month about the way AI has become integrated into eCommerce, citing projections from Bank of America Securities that ChatGPT will handle approximately 20 billion shopping-related messages this year.

Last year’s holiday season saw global retail sales jump to $1.2 trillion, including $282 billion in the United States, as AI chatbot and agent engagement rose 42%. However, the same systems fueling that growth are combining discovery and checkout into a single step, increasing exposure to fraud, chargebacks and questions of consumer trust, that report said.

With OpenAI’s Instant Checkout now live, conversational platforms are turning into marketplaces. The shift is lessening the distance between product discovery and purchase.

“AI agents are fast becoming the new gatekeepers of commerce, shrinking discovery from thousands of listings to a handful of curated options and collapsing checkout into a single click,” PYMNTS wrote in a separate report.

In other OpenAI news, the company on Tuesday announced ChatGPT Go in Brazil, a new subscription plan aimed at offering wider access to ChatGPT’s  capabilities with a 65% lower price than ChatGPT Plus. The version also offers exclusive benefits for Nubank customers, who can get up to a one-year free subscription, and marks OpenAI’s first partnership with a financial institution in Brazil.

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