Instant Checkout and Agentic Commerce with Shopify
Over 700 million people use ChatGPT every week to get support in their daily activities. No longer just a virtual assistant capable of answering questions or generating content, it is now also a digital personal shopper. With the launch of Instant Checkout, OpenAI marks the beginning of a new era: agentic commerce.
From search to purchase, without leaving the chat
Until yesterday, ChatGPT helped users discover the most relevant products based on their requests. Today it takes a step further: it allows them to purchase directly in chat, without intermediaries.
In the United States, ChatGPT users (Plus, Pro and Free) can already buy from Etsy sellers, while over one million Shopify merchants are preparing to integrate.
The process is simple: the user asks for recommendations, for example “the best running shoes under 100 euros”; ChatGPT suggests the most relevant products (organic, not sponsored); if the product supports Instant Checkout, just tap Buy, confirm shipping and payment, and the order is completed, without ever leaving the chat.
OpenAI will charge a commission on transactions completed through ChatGPT, which means Instant Checkout could become a major new revenue source for the company.
OpenAI declined to share specific details on the commission amounts, as they are determined through confidential contracts with Etsy and Shopify. Instant Checkout is free for users and does not affect their prices, OpenAI stated.
Why it is revolutionary
Instant Checkout is not just a new feature, but represents a paradigm shift for online commerce.
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For consumers, the journey is shortened to the maximum: search, selection and purchase happen in a single conversational flow.
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For brands and merchants, it opens a direct channel with hundreds of millions of people, while maintaining full control over payments, orders, support, and customer relationship.
A huge opportunity, especially when we think about the possibility of intercepting demand the very moment it arises, within a conversational context rather than a traditional search engine.
The technological core: Agentic Commerce Protocol
At the center of it all is the Agentic Commerce Protocol, developed together with Stripe and released as Open Source.
This open standard allows AI agents, people, and businesses to “speak the same language” to complete a purchase.
Key strengths:
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Cross-platform: works with different payment processors and business types.
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Fast integration: does not require deep changes to merchants’ backends.
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Merchant control: brands remain registered as official merchants, managing orders, returns, customer care and communications.
If a merchant already uses Stripe, they can enable agentic payments with a single line of code. But the protocol was designed to be inclusive: even those using other systems can integrate thanks to specific APIs and the Delegated Payments Spec.
How to enable Instant Checkout
Although today, September 29, Instant Checkout is only available in the United States, OpenAI has opened enrollment forms worldwide in anticipation of activating major countries, including the major European countries, by the end of the year.
Merchants interested in enabling Instant Checkout, providing the product feed and adding instant checkout can submit an application on the dedicated enrollment page.
OpenAI accepts requests from merchants who want both to integrate their products into search results via ChatGPT and to enable instant checkout in ChatGPT through the Agentic Commerce Protocol.
Once accepted, they must build the feed to provide to OpenAI and implement checkout according to the instructions of the Agentic Commerce Protocol.
The Product Feed to enable Instant Checkout
The product feed specified by OpenAI is the means by which merchants communicate to ChatGPT the updated catalog of their items: prices, availability, images, variants, seller information and so on.
Through this structured feed, OpenAI can accurately index products and present potential buyers with the most up-to-date and reliable information.
In the technical specification of the feed, each product must include a minimum set of required fields (such as identifiers, title, description, price, availability) and can be enriched with optional attributes (additional images, videos, return policies, popularity signals, etc.).
A crucial aspect is that the feed must be updated frequently (at least every 15 minutes) to avoid discrepancies between the actual store status and what is shown in ChatGPT.
Finally, feed ingestion occurs via secure HTTPS transfer to approved endpoints, with data validation by OpenAI before products go live in search or checkout.
In this way, the feed acts as the “source of truth” for ChatGPT regarding price, stock and product features, ensuring that the shopping experience within the platform faithfully reflects the merchant’s inventory. This also extends to sharing popularity metrics and return rates, where available. Information on how many returns are made will be used to improve product ranking and highlight top-performing items, and it will be up to the merchant to provide this via the popularity_score and return_rate.
What to expect in the coming months
At the moment, Instant Checkout only supports single-item purchases in the USA. But OpenAI has already announced:
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multi-item carts,
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expansion to new regions including the major European countries
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involvement of additional platforms and merchants.
The path is set: from conversational commerce to agentic commerce. In other words, ChatGPT will not only help us choose what to buy, but will become the agent that accompanies us all the way to payment, redefining the very concept of the customer journey.
For companies, this innovation represents a double stimulus:
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Get technologically prepared to enable the Agentic Commerce Protocol.
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Rethink presence strategies: it will no longer be enough to be found on Google or in marketplaces, but companies will need to be present in conversational spaces, where the purchase decision takes shape in real time.
The introduction of Instant Checkout and Google’s AI Mode marks a substantial evolution of the digital purchase funnel, steering it towards simplicity, automation, and friction reduction. For e-commerce players, this implies an immediate adjustment of infrastructures and operational flows: investing now in experimentation and integration is essential to maintain a competitive edge when these standards consolidate.
HT&T has been working in digital for 25 years, innovating and supporting companies in marketing and e-commerce, with projects on Magento, Shopify and other platforms, helping businesses achieve their goals through innovation and project sustainability.
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