Synchrony may be best known for its credit card partnerships with major retailers such as Walmart, Amazon, and Lowe’s, but the company is making a big push into artificial intelligence through a deal with OpenAI.
Synchrony will deploy OpenAI’s models across a range of use cases, including its customer portals, loyalty and rewards programs, and agentic commerce initiatives.
The credit issuer will also launch a ChatGPT plugin that will enable consumers to search for Synchrony-powered e-commerce deals, partner offers, and discounts. Internally, Synchrony plans to use OpenAI’s models to accelerate product development.
“Synchrony’s alignment with OpenAI will bring a clever addition to credit card payments,” said Brian Riley, Director of Credit at Javelin Strategy & Research. “By connecting Synchrony’s large consumer base with private-label cards from Amazon to Verizon, the business will soon have an opportunity to go head-to-head with Capital One Shopping and Citi’s version. The connection to Synchrony’s large retail partner base will likely give the Stamford, CT firm an edge.”
The Broader Convergence
This move reflects the broader convergence of financial services and AI, which has gained significant traction in recent years and prompted a wave of partnerships, investments, and acquisitions.
For example, Stripe recently acquired AI gateway OpenRouter for $7 billion in a bid to become a centralized payments provider for AI token spend.
Visa has also partnered with OpenAI, bringing agentic commerce capabilities to ChatGPT. While consumers already use AI models for product comparisons and shopping advice, the integration is aimed at a more advanced form of agentic commerce, in which AI agents can handle complex purchasing tasks with limited user intervention.
Embedded in Agentic Commerce
All signs point to broader adoption of agentic commerce in the coming years, driven in part by investment from financial services and technology companies. These firms are building infrastructure designed to facilitate and safeguard transactions in an environment where AI agents increasingly participate in purchasing decisions.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks to wider adoption is trust. Consumers and businesses will need to become comfortable giving AI agents authority over increasingly consequential financial tasks.
Synchrony brings a particular set of assets to that challenge. The company has longstanding credit card relationships with some of the world’s largest retailers, and Walmart recently returned to Synchrony as its credit issuer after moving its business to Capital One.
That history doesn’t necessarily mean the Synchrony and OpenAI partnership will become a major catalyst for agentic commerce. But Synchrony’s position in consumer credit and e-commerce could give it a useful role as AI-driven shopping evolves—particularly if agentic commerce shifts from product discovery toward transactions, financing, and payments.
“Synchrony has been an innovator in consumer credit for more than half a century,” Riley said. “Aside from the many retail partnerships, Javelin has noted that the foundation of GECC, the firm’s original roots, was the basis of BNPL, which repackaged the original consumer financing model.”
“The firm has been keen on building deposits from high-yield consumer accounts and has built a strong alternative model in consumer healthcare,” he said. “In August 2026, Javelin added Synchrony’s suite of branded network cards into the Card Bench, a competitive tool for top U.S. issuers.”
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