OpenAI’s ChatGPT now lets users buy products directly in chat through its Instant Checkout feature, currently available for US users shopping on Etsy and soon expanding to Shopify merchants such as Glossier, Vuori, Spanx, and SKIMS.
Instant Checkout is now available for US ChatGPT Pro, Plus, and free accounts.
“Shopify merchants will be able to sell directly in ChatGPT,” said Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke in a post on X. “We’ve been working with OpenAI for quite some time so people can search and buy products in chat, and it’s something we’ve had a hard time keeping quiet.”
The rollout is powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol, an open standard co-developed with Stripe. ACP allows businesses to maintain control over transactions while enabling AI agents to securely facilitate purchases. It connects with any commerce backend or payment system and supports physical and digital goods, subscriptions, asynchronous purchases, multi-merchant carts, and in-store pickup options.
The ACP specification is available for businesses and AI agents to implement immediately. “Customers should be able to securely buy where they discover; businesses should be able to sell through new channels without giving up trust, brand, or control; and AI agents should be able to enable transactions without exposing customer credentials,” said Stripe in its blog post.
The protocol is designed to connect with any commerce backend and payments infrastructure, allowing businesses to integrate once and distribute to any ACP-compatible AI agent. ACP also supports physical and digital goods, subscriptions, and asynchronous purchases, including features such as multi-merchant carts and in-store pickup options.
“Trust is essential. With AI agents now capable of initiating transactions on behalf of buyers, businesses need a way to confirm purchases, securely accept payment credentials, respond to new fraud signals, and update their risk models,” said Stripe.
Under ACP, the transaction process works as follows. The buyer selects a product and payment method. The AI agent collects payment details and requests checkout from the business. The business reviews and processes the transaction as the merchant of record, while the payment provider relays credentials securely through a tokenised system.
The protocol is open source under an Apache 2.0 license, allowing any business to implement it with compatible AI agents and payment providers.
