OpenAI has announced the launch of Instant Checkout in ChatGPT, powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol and built with Stripe. Limited to the US for now, the feature allows users to make purchases via ChatGPT through a text prompt from Etsy sellers, with over a million Shopify merchants to be added soon.
Instant Checkout in ChatGPT: Everything to Know
U.S. ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Free users can now buy directly from U.S. Etsy sellers in chat, with over a million Shopify merchants, like Glossier, SKIMS, Spanx and Vuori, coming soon. Today, Instant Checkout supports single-item purchases and OpenAI will soon add multi-item carts and expand merchants and regions.
If a user searches for a product on ChatGPT and that product supports Instant Checkout, users can tap “Buy,” confirm their order, shipping, and payment details, and complete the purchase without ever leaving the chat. Existing ChatGPT subscribers can pay with their card on file, or other card and express payment options.
Orders, payments, and fulfillment are handled by the merchant using their existing systems. ChatGPT simply acts as the user’s AI agent—securely passing information between user and merchant, like a digital personal shopper would.
Merchants pay a small fee on completed purchases, but the service is free for users, doesn’t affect their prices, and doesn’t influence ChatGPT’s product results. Instant Checkout items are not preferred in product results. When ranking multiple merchants that sell the same product, ChatGPT considers factors like availability, price, quality, whether a merchant is the primary seller, and whether Instant Checkout is enabled, to optimize the user experience.
OpenAI employed Agentic Commerce Protocol with Stripe and leading merchants to enable Instant Checkout in ChatGPT. It allows to:
- Keep merchants in control of the customer relationship as the merchant of record across the purchase journey–from fulfillment and returns to support and communication.
- Work across platforms, payment processors, and business types.
- Integrate quickly without changing their backend systems.
When someone places an order, ChatGPT sends the necessary details to the merchant’s backend using Agentic Commerce Protocol. The merchant accepts or declines the order, processes the payment via their existing provider, and handles fulfillment and customer support exactly as they do with their current process.
”If a merchant already processes payments with Stripe, they can enable agentic payments in as little as one line of code. If they use another payment processor, they can still participate in Instant Checkout and accept agentic payments either by using Stripe’s new Shared Payment Token API or adopting the Delegated Payments Spec in the Agentic Commerce Protocol—all without changing their existing payment processor,” said OpenAI.
OpenAI notes that the user always stays in control of the whole experience:
- User explicitly confirms each step before any action is taken.
- Encrypted payment tokens are only authorized for specific amounts and specific merchants with the user’s permission.
- Only the information required to complete the order is shared with the merchant, with the user’s permission.
Read More: OpenAI Launches Study Mode in ChatGPT: What is it?
Parental Controls in ChatGPT
Available to all ChatGPT users starting today, parental controls allow parents to link their account with their teen’s account and customize settings for a safe, age-appropriate experience. To set up parental controls, a parent or guardian sends an invite to their teen to connect accounts. After the teen accepts, the parent can manage the teen’s settings from their own account. Teens can also invite a parent to connect.
Once linked, parents can customize their teen’s experience in ChatGPT in a simple control page in account settings. If a teen unlinks their account, their parent will be notified. Once parents and teens connect their accounts, the teen account will automatically get additional content protections, including reduced graphic content, viral challenges, sexual, romantic or violent roleplay, and extreme beauty ideals.
Other additional features for parents include:
From a simple control page, parents can:
- Set quiet hours, or specific times when ChatGPT can’t be used.
- Turn off voice mode, to remove the option to use voice mode in ChatGPT.
- Turn off memory, so ChatGPT won’t save and use memories when responding.
- Remove image generation, so ChatGPT won’t have the ability to create or edit images.
- Opt out of model training, so their teen’s conversations won’t be used to improve models powering ChatGPT.
OpenAI has also added protections that help ChatGPT recognise potential signs that a teen might be thinking about harming themselves. If its systems detect potential harm, a small team of specially trained people reviews the situation. If there are signs of acute distress, the company will contact parents by email, text message and push alert on their phone, unless they have opted out.
Finally, in the coming months, the company is also building an age prediction system that will help it predict whether a user is under 18 so that ChatGPT can automatically apply teen-appropriate settings.