OpenAI launched a feature called
Instant Checkout last year that allowed consumers to buy products through its platform, winning support from Walmart, Shopify, Etsy, and PayPal.
Now OpenAI has shifted responsibility to
retailers, and abandoned the prior strategy to give them control of the buying experience like the checkout process or pushing it into apps.
“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,” OpenAI wrote in a blog post.
OpenAI and Walmart announced
a shift from their previous "Instant Checkout" feature to a more integrated, native app experience in ChatGPT.
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The companies are calling it an "in-ChatGPT app experience." to take users
from discovery in ChatGPT into a Walmart environment that supports account linking, loyalty and Walmart payments.
This new experience is available in web browsers, with app access in iOS
and Android to soon follow.
This follows an initial partnership announced in October 2025 that allowed users to shop for Walmart products via ChatGPT.
This app version gives Walmart
greater control of the customer experience and transaction process.
OpenAI has expanded the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) to support product discovery that brings more complete,
relevant, and up-to-date information directly into ChatGPT.
Comparing products also has been made easier, the company wrote in a post. Products are presented side by side with key details
like price, reviews, and features, so consumers can quickly evaluate options without jumping between sites.
The company
officially announced its entry into advertising sales on ChatGPT on January 16, 2026,
beginning with testing in the United States for users
on the free tier and the newly launched ChatGPT Go subscriptionHowever, although the company is an expert in building LLMs, it seems that ecommerce and advertising have not
performed as planned.
ChatGPT’s ad platform shares nearly zero performance data with advertisers, according to Glenn Gabe, SEO and AI search consultant at G-Squared Interactive, citing
an article from The Information.
In addition, it has limited ad-targeting features and no automated ways to make ad buys, and advertisers have had to rely on archaic methods of making
phone calls and sending spreadsheets, he wrote on the social media platform X.
"Two executives at agencies working with early ChatGPT advertisers said they have not yet been able to prove the
ads have driven any measurable business outcomes for their clients,” he wrote, citing the article.