Is OpenAI entering its e-commerce era?

TL;DR: OpenAI is expanding its e-commerce abilities, but payment processing, state-specific sales taxes, and how it will handle sensitive data are all still up in the air, The Information reported yesterday. The company is also reworking how it handles credit card data, which could make it easier to use payment processors beyond Stripe.

What happened: Users have been able to make purchases through ChatGPT since September, when OpenAI rolled out new in-chat shopping capabilities in partnership with Etsy. It also announced a similar partnership with Shopify, though the in-chat capabilities are not yet widely available.

But OpenAI may be a bit ahead of itself: It’s still not sure how it will “handle the collection of sales taxes for purchases made through its site,” two people familiar with the company’s e-commerce progress told The Information. And complying with state-by-state sales tax laws is a minefield, one in which OpenAI may be responsible for its own compliance rather than relying on “marketplace facilitators” like Etsy.

It also looks like OpenAI will not rely solely on Stripe, the payment processor it currently uses that also stores sensitive data like credit card numbers—which would “be a blow for Stripe,” The Information reported. OpenAI is working with a different software vendor “to store payment data on secure external servers not tied to a specific payment firm,” and will unveil its newly diversified payment processing abilities by the end of March.

Why it matters: ChatGPT’s in-chat shopping experience is an example of agentic commerce, or a shopping experience in which AI buys things for humans. Depending on how large of a commission OpenAI makes on each purchase, the payoff could be enormous: According to McKinsey, the retail market is valued to bring in up to $1 trillion from agentic commerce by 2030. Given that OpenAI is predicted to lose billions this year by its own valuation, agentic commerce could help balance out losses.

But any revenue OpenAI gleans could be undercut by weighty financial penalties if it doesn’t correctly collect and remit sales tax, and consumers could lose trust in the chatbot if they repeatedly run into payment problems.

Competition is heating up: Wired reported last year that ChatGPT’s in-chat shopping experience “shares many similarities” to Google Shopping. Since then, however, Google has rolled out its own shopping agent: Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience. Mark Zuckerberg has also said that Meta will focus on “AI-driven commerce” this year.

“New agentic shopping tools will allow people to find just the right set of products from the businesses in our catalog,” Zuckerberg said during an investor call last month.

Though OpenAI got its in-chat shopping experience up and running first, only time will tell who will be the first to let you outsource that Mother’s Day gift to a bot. —TC