Buy It in ChatGPT: The Agentic Era of Commerce is Officially Here

AI agents just crossed the transactional threshold.

With the launch of “Buy it in ChatGPT,” OpenAI didn’t just announce a feature. They activated a new channel. One that blends discovery, comparison, and checkout into a single step inside the conversation.

If you’ve been following the evolution of agentic commerce, this is the clearest signal yet. The buying experience is shifting from websites to interfaces. From owned platforms to rented agents. From search results to summaries with embedded CTAs.

And the ripple effect will be massive.

We’ve seen this coming. ChatGPT plugins gave us a glimpse. The GPT Store teased it. Vision Pro hinted at the interfaces. Shopify’s momentum around AI merchant tools foreshadowed it. But now the pipes are connected: OpenAI, Shopify, Stripe. With real products. Real payments. And a real marketplace forming inside a chat window.

This is the moment agentic commerce became real.

ChatGPT is Now a Storefront

This isn’t an integration or a partnership. It’s a new distribution layer.

But the signals were there if you were watching closely.

Back in July, OpenAI quietly began inserting Shopify product cards into ChatGPT search results. It didn’t make headlines at the time, but it was a clear test. Users could browse Shopify listings directly in-chat, but once they clicked, they were still redirected out to a merchant’s website to complete the transaction.

That was step one. Product discovery.

Now we’re seeing step two. Full conversion.

With the launch of “Buy it in ChatGPT,” that friction is gone. Users can now:

• Discover products through natural conversation
• Ask follow-up questions, get recommendations, compare options
• Complete purchase instantly, without leaving ChatGPT
  

Stripe handles the transactions. Shopify and Etsy provide the inventory. OpenAI stitches it together with context, memory, and conversational flow.

The result? A storefront with no homepage. A checkout with no cart. A customer journey that begins and ends in a single prompt.

Agentic Commerce Is No Longer a Theory

Let’s be clear. This isn’t a test. This is a foundational shift.

Agentic commerce refers to AI agents acting on behalf of users to fulfill goals. Not just surfacing results, but completing tasks. That idea has been floating around for years, but until now, it lacked infrastructure.

Here’s what changed:

• AI agents gained the ability to remember preferences and context
• LLMs became good enough to manage multi-step tasks
• APIs and partnerships connected search, recommendation, and transaction
• Consumer behavior shifted toward interface trust (we now shop through prompts, not menus)
  

OpenAI’s move makes this fully operational.

A user can now say:
“I want to buy a birthday gift for my wife. Something under $100, preferably handmade, and not jewelry.”
And the agent will not only recommend, but transact.

Shopify Merchants: You’re on the Frontline of This Shift

If you’re a Shopify merchant, you’re already in the ecosystem. But don’t get comfortable. Access to ChatGPT’s commerce engine isn’t automatic. Visibility will be algorithmic.

Here’s what to do now:

• Get your product catalog optimized for LLM visibility (this means structured data, yes, but also human-readable summaries)
• Simplify your descriptions. Agents prioritize clarity over creativity
• Train your product content for natural language queries, not just keywords
• Watch for the upcoming merchant onboarding process from OpenAI
  

And most importantly: optimize for agent trust. This is different than SEO. You’re not ranking for humans. You’re qualifying for an agent’s decision matrix.

If you need help, we’ve already launched AI Shopping Visibility services at Avenue Z, and we’re seeing brands win early. Don’t wait.

“Bringing Shopify merchants into ChatGPT lets indie brands to household names reach customers in entirely new ways, meeting high-intent shoppers in relevant conversations. From search to social media and now to agent-assisted shopping, our goal is always to make sure our merchants are at the forefront.”

– Vanessa Lee, VP of Product, Shopify

Not on Shopify? Here’s Your Path In

Shopify and Etsy have the earliest and deepest integrations with ChatGPT commerce, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is locked out. OpenAI has opened a path for non-Shopify merchants to participate through its merchant application form.

That said, the process is not as turnkey. You will need to invest more in setup, feed structure, and Stripe integration to be visible inside ChatGPT.

Here’s what to consider if you’re not on Shopify today:

• Apply directly to OpenAI through the merchant application form
• Prepare a clean, structured product feed that maps to conversational fields (category, price, delivery window, material, reviews, etc.)
• Make sure your Stripe integration is ready, since it powers the checkout layer
• Audit and enrich your product data so it can stand up in a competitive AI-driven environment

The good news is you can still participate. The challenge is that visibility won’t come from brand recognition alone. The LLM doesn’t know loyalty. It knows structured, relevant data.

The sooner you start structuring and submitting your product information, the better chance you have of showing up when users ask agents for recommendations.

Why Most Brands Will Fail at Agentic Commerce (And How You Won’t)

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most brands aren’t ready for this.

They’ll assume ChatGPT shopping is just another extension of Google Shopping. They’ll copy over their product feeds. They’ll ignore the nuance. And they’ll get buried.

This isn’t traditional product search. It’s conversational retrieval.

There are no custom labels. No keyword fields. The LLM doesn’t care about your exact-match titles or backend tags. It’s parsing natural language queries and matching them against structured fields like:

product_category
condition
brand
material
dimensions
delivery window
product review count
and most importantly: description

You’re not optimizing for clicks. You’re optimizing for comprehension.

If someone asks:
“What’s a good eco-friendly, vegan leather laptop bag under $200 that ships in 2 days?”
The agent isn’t looking for keywords. It’s parsing the query semantically and matching it against your metadata. If your fields are empty or generic, you’re invisible.

Here’s what smart brands will do:

• Complete every relevant optional field in their product feed
• Structure the description field as a mini knowledge base — not fluff, but context
• Standardize materials, dimensions, weights, and variations for machine readability
• Build toward data density, not just visual aesthetics
• Treat this like a new ranking system for agentic results

The attrition curve will be steep. Most brands won’t do this work. But that’s the opportunity.

This isn’t about flooding the feed with SKUs. It’s about making your data so comprehensive, so aligned with user intent, that the agent has no choice but to recommend you.

If you want to play in the agentic economy, you need to feed the agent properly.

This Is the New Search

This isn’t just about checkout. It’s about visibility.

Discovery now starts and ends inside the agent. And the data backs it up. According to the latest Profound study, 58 percent of consumers used an Answer Engine like ChatGPT in a recent product research journey. Even more telling: nearly 80 percent made at least half of their buying decisions inside those experiences.

The path to purchase is compressing. And it’s happening inside interfaces that bypass your site, your funnel, and your traditional attribution model.

We’re watching a new layer of AI SEO emerge — one where content, product descriptions, reviews, and authority all work together to earn you a mention from the agent.

That means:

1. Traditional SEO strategies are less effective here
2. Conversational relevance matters more than keyword matching
3. Brand authority, trust signals, and consistency will decide inclusion
4. The ranking criteria are opaque, which means you have to test and adapt fast

The brands who win will be the ones who train their content for LLMs, not just search engines.

We explored this shift in our 2025 AI Shopping Visibility Index for Beauty Brands. And the same rules are starting to apply across industries.

A Few Predictions from the Frontlines

This shift isn’t happening in a vacuum — it’s landing right as we enter Q4.

That means OpenAI’s rollout is perfectly timed to intersect with holiday shopping season, BFCM deals, and peak eCommerce traffic. This quarter will be the first true test of agentic commerce at scale, and it’s going to set the tone for how consumers interact with AI in 2025 and beyond.

Here’s what I expect:

1. The agent stack is going to splinter: OpenAI isn’t going to be the only player here. Expect Meta, Google (Gemini), and Apple to roll out their own closed-loop commerce ecosystems powered by their agents.
2. The new homepage is going to be a chat window: If you’ve optimized your homepage for conversions, you now need to optimize your brand summary for ChatGPT. This is where users will land.
3. Custom agents will drive niche commerce: Think AI-powered concierge agents for travel, beauty, health, fashion, pets. Brands will begin sponsoring or building niche agents to push preferred products.
4. This will impact paid media too: Expect to see sponsored results inside agents. The same way Google evolved search ads, OpenAI and others will monetize AI agents directly.
5. We’re headed for a trust war: Consumers will start to question which agent they trust most. Transparency, reliability, and brand alignment will matter more than ever.

Final Thought: This Isn’t the Future. It’s the Interface Now

With Q4 just beginning, we’re heading straight into the most competitive shopping season of the year — and this time, AI agents are in the driver’s seat.

The brands who show up early will capture the first wave of agent-driven transactions during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the holiday surge. The ones who wait will be left studying the results in January, wondering where their traffic went.

Every brand that sells a product should be asking:
How do we show up in ChatGPT?
How do we earn the agent’s recommendation?
How do we convert without ever sending users to our site?

The funnel has changed. The touchpoints are collapsing. And for the first time, commerce is becoming something the user asks for, not stumbles into.

If you’re a marketer, you’re not optimizing pages anymore. You’re optimizing conversations.

The sooner you adapt, the sooner you win. Need help building your AI Shopping Visibility? Let’s talk.