Artificial intelligence has become embedded in the shopping experience, and new collaborations between OpenAI and Stripe are expanding the technology’s role in payments.
First, ChatGPT’s U.S. users can now make Etsy and Shopify purchases directly on the platform. For example, once a shopper engages with the AI interface to explore a product and refine their search, they can confirm shipping details and pay using Apple Pay, Google Pay, Stripe, or a credit card—without ever leaving ChatGPT.
Second, Stripe and OpenAI are working together on an open-source Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP). The goal is to build the infrastructure that allows merchants, consumers, and developers to integrate AI agents into the shopping journey.
Continued Advancement
These initiatives highlight the ongoing momentum behind the agentic commerce movement, which has picked up steam in recent months. Perplexity announced its Pro subscribers can now pay directly within its chat using PayPal or Venmo, a model similar to the one ChatGPT and Stripe are rolling out.
Meanwhile, Google introduced Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), an open-source protocol designed as a framework to support agentic AI. The framework accomodates multiple payment types, including debit and credit cards, stablecoin transfers, and real-time payments.
Continued Questions
As agentic commerce platforms continue to emerge, questions have risen about the role of AI and AI agents in the e-commerce landscape. The most pressing question is how these platforms are safeguarding against errors and fraud.
In Google’s AP2, for example, the tech giant uses mandates—digital contracts that verify the AI agent has followed its directives—to help protect payment data. In the ChatGPT and Stripe model, Open AI explained that all orders, payments, and fulfillment are managed directly by merchants through their existing systems, with ChatGPT acting only as an intermediary to relay data between users and merchants.
Beyond security, there are also questions about how these platforms will leverage the data they collect and whether AI models will remain unbiased and natural in their interactions. For example, if a user consults ChatGPT about a particular item, some may wonder whether the chatbot would steer the shopper to Etsy instead of a competing marketplace.
OpenAI addressed this concern in a blog post, noting that product results are organic, not sponsored, and ranked according to relevance for the user. The company also noted it will charge merchants a nominal fee for completed purchases.
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