Is there a play for OpenAI in agentic commerce? - International Data Corporation
OpenAI is quietly retreating from its vision of becoming a middleman in online checkout.
OpenAI is quietly retreating from its vision of becoming a middleman in online checkout. The company is moving ChatGPT's Instant Checkout feature into apps operated by merchants, away from direct integration with product listings inside the AI assistant — a pivot that reflects the operational complexity retailers face when ceding control of the purchase moment.
"We're evolving how we approach commerce in ChatGPT to better meet merchants and users where they are," an OpenAI spokesperson told Digital Commerce 360. "Instant Checkout is moving to Apps, where purchases can happen more seamlessly."
The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), the infrastructure OpenAI built with payment processor Stripe, survives the pivot. But the original model — ChatGPT surfacing products and closing the sale directly — is giving way to a different architecture: merchants like Target, DoorDash, Instacart, and The Knot now build their own ChatGPT apps, handling checkout on their own terms.
Shopify's president Harley Finkelstein articulated the merchant case against delegation at a Morgan Stanley conference in early March. "Now that is not just the payment," he said. "That is the checkout itself, that is subscriptions, that is inventory, that is shipping taxes, all the different merchandising options that come with any type of transaction." For Shopify, which powers millions of merchants, the checkout is IP — a moat built on transaction data that gets smarter with every order. Surrendering that to an AI assistant means losing the learning loop.
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar outlined the commerce strategy in a January blog post, framing the pivot as a partner-first approach rather than a direct competition with established retail platforms. The company reported $20 billion in annualized revenue in 2025, up from $6 billion in 2024 and $2 billion in 2023 — growth that has come largely from API and enterprise deals, not consumer commerce.
The Instant Checkout flop in ChatGPT is the most recent evidence that the agentic commerce thesis faces a fundamental friction: retailers are not willing to cede the checkout moment to a third-party AI, no matter how capable. The Walmart experience — conversion rates three times lower for direct ChatGPT purchases versus click-outs — reinforces what Shopify has been arguing. Consumers do not want automated single-item purchase authorization from a chatbot they do not control.
What OpenAI retains is the traffic. ChatGPT is generating purchase referrals at a rate that makes it worth pursuing even without a direct transaction cut. The ACP infrastructure means the company remains the plumbing for agentic commerce even as it steps back from being the merchant.
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