In March 2026 OpenAI deprioritised Instant Checkout, the feature launched in September 2025 that let people buy products directly inside ChatGPT. Checkout now happens on retailers’ own websites, and ChatGPT is positioned as a product discovery and comparison tool.
What happened?
According to industry reports, take-up was far below expectations: as of February 2026 only around 30 Shopify stores had gone live. Handling payment, delivery, returns and customer service inside another company’s chat interface proved impractical at scale.
What replaced it?
OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) now focuses on discovery:
- Visual product listings and image-based search
- Side-by-side price and feature comparisons
- Conversational refinement (e.g. “a quiet dishwasher under £800”)
- Sending shoppers to the retailer’s own site to buy
Major retailers such as Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Sephora feed live product data into this system.
What it means for online stores
This is actually good news for merchants: sales, returns and the customer relationship stay with you, while ChatGPT becomes a new shop window that sends you customers. To be visible there:
- Keep product data accurate and structured. Price, stock, delivery and specs should be in an up-to-date product feed.
- Create comparison-focused content. Product pages and guides that clearly answer “which one is right for whom?” stand out in AI comparisons.
- Strengthen trust signals. Reviews, a clear returns policy and mentions of your brand on other sites matter.
- Don’t neglect SEO basics. Structured data, fast pages and a clean site structure are still the foundation.
Our take
AI shopping assistants will reach every market quickly. Brands that organise their product data and content now will gain an early advantage in this new channel. Our e-commerce and SEO + GEO services cover exactly this preparation.