OpenAI Axes ChatGPT In-Chat Shopping Checkout Feature, Leaving Partners Such as PayPal and Etsy in the Lurch

According to 1M AI News monitoring, OpenAI has abandoned the Instant Checkout feature that was originally planned to allow direct product purchasing in ChatGPT conversations this month, leaving several partner companies who had invested engineering resources for this in an awkward position.

PayPal had planned to integrate its wallet into the ChatGPT checkout flow later this year. As part of the exchange, PayPal had committed to increasing its purchases of the OpenAI API, Enterprise ChatGPT subscription, and the Codex programming tool, covering its over 24,000 employees. Following the shelving of the shopping feature, PayPal's commitment to purchases remains valid, but the transaction fee revenue it had hoped to earn from checkout transactions is now in limbo. Both parties are currently reassessing their collaboration approach.

Etsy had previously begun integrating its merchants' products into ChatGPT and had voluntarily absorbed the transaction fees charged by OpenAI instead of passing them on to the merchants. Etsy is now planning to develop its own ChatGPT application, but it is not yet clear whether the application's form and whether OpenAI will charge for in-app sales. Stripe is less affected as it was already handling payments for OpenAI consumer subscriptions and will continue to advance the Agentic Commerce Protocol jointly developed by both parties (an AI Agent standard transaction protocol).

OpenAI has stated that it will retain the checkout feature in a more limited manner, shifting to completing purchases within exclusive applications of retailers integrated with ChatGPT, but the timeline for this implementation is unclear. According to The Information, shopping is just one of the "side missions" that OpenAI is contracting. The video generation tool Sora is also being scaled back, with plans to merge it into the main ChatGPT application, and the long-term prospects of the standalone app are uncertain. The Sora character licensing agreement signed with Disney in December of last year (where Disney also committed to a $1 billion investment in OpenAI and becoming a "key customer") may be affected as a result.