A guide to the new Shopify ChatGPT checkout feature (2025)

Well, OpenAI just made a huge announcement. It’s turning ChatGPT into a storefront, letting millions of users buy products directly inside the chat. This isn’t just a small update; it could completely change how we all shop online.

This new feature, called "Instant Checkout," is already rolling out with Etsy and is set to include over a million Shopify merchants very soon. AI is making the leap from being an information tool to an interactive place to buy things. In this guide, we’ll break down exactly what the new Shopify ChatGPT checkout feature is, how it works for both shoppers and store owners, what the limitations are, and what it means for the future of e-commerce and customer support.

What is the Shopify ChatGPT checkout feature?

Not too long ago, OpenAI decided to flip the script on its popular chatbot. It’s moving beyond just answering questions and becoming a full-blown e-commerce platform. This is all thanks to a new capability called "Instant Checkout" and a technology standard known as the Agentic Commerce Protocol.

How it works: Instant checkout and the Agentic Commerce Protocol

So, how does this all work? It really comes down to two main parts.

First, you have Instant Checkout. As the official OpenAI announcement puts it, this is a feature inside ChatGPT that lets you buy something from a partner store in just a few taps, all without ever leaving the chat. No more being sent to another website, fumbling to re-enter your details, or figuring out a new checkout flow.

The tech making this possible is the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP). You can think of it as a common language that lets AI agents, businesses, and customers communicate securely to handle a purchase. It was developed with Stripe and is an open-source standard, which means other platforms can adopt it, though using Stripe is the most direct way to get it working for now.

Here’s a simple breakdown of who does what:

• OpenAI: Provides the ChatGPT interface and its massive audience of over 700 million weekly active users.

• Shopify: Brings its huge network of over a million merchants, making their products available to buy right inside ChatGPT.

• Stripe: Handles the secure payment processing that makes the whole transaction happen.

How the Shopify ChatGPT checkout feature works for customers

For shoppers, the whole thing is meant to feel like a natural, easy conversation. Instead of typing a search into Google, clicking a link, and browsing a site, the entire path from discovery to purchase can happen in one place.

Here’s what that journey typically looks like:

1. It starts with a question. A user might ask something specific like, "find me a waterproof running jacket under $150," or something more general, like, "what’s a good housewarming gift for a friend who loves plants?"

2. Products appear in the chat. ChatGPT then scans its partner merchants’ products and shows the most relevant options directly in the conversation. OpenAI says these are organic results based purely on what the user asked for, not paid ads.

3. The purchase happens instantly. If a product from a participating Shopify store pops up, a "Buy" button appears with it. The user taps the button, confirms their shipping and payment info (which can be pre-filled for ChatGPT subscribers), and the order is complete. That’s it. They just bought something without ever leaving the chat.

This process removes a lot of the usual friction from online shopping. By cutting out the need to visit another website and pull out a credit card, OpenAI is betting it can seriously increase conversions, especially for simple, one-off purchases.

What the Shopify ChatGPT checkout feature means for merchants

If you’re running a Shopify store, this new feature opens up a huge, untapped sales channel. But it’s not a one-way street; there are definite trade-offs. You get in front of a massive audience, but you also give up a good deal of control compared to selling on your own site.

The upside: A new frontier for sales

• Incredible reach: You can get your products in front of ChatGPT’s 700 million users, many of whom are looking for solutions your products could provide.

• Less friction, more sales: The easier you make it for someone to buy, the more likely they are to follow through. This is perfect for capturing those impulse buys and converting customers who might have bounced during a longer checkout process.

• A new way to be discovered: Your products can now show up in response to natural language questions. This is totally different from traditional SEO or paid ads and could help you reach a whole new set of customers.

Trade-offs and what to consider

• You lose the direct relationship: The customer never actually visits your website. That means you miss out on key opportunities to build your brand, upsell or cross-sell other products, and get them on your email list. They are OpenAI’s user, not yours.

• You’re not in control: You don’t get to manage the chat experience, the AI’s personality, or how your products are shown. Your product is just one result on someone else’s platform, stripped of your store’s branding and feel.

• Less data to work with: OpenAI has stated that data sharing is minimal. You’ll get the info needed to ship the order, but you won’t get the rich behavioral data (like page views or time on site) that you’d normally collect from your own website.

• A gap in customer support: The purchase itself is smooth, but what about when the customer has a question later? They’re left to go find your help center or contact info on their own, which creates a clunky and potentially frustrating experience.

• It’s still early days: At launch, the feature is limited to single-item purchases and is only available in the U.S. While that will likely change, these are important limitations for now.

The bigger picture: Sales channel vs. a true AI support agent

The Shopify ChatGPT checkout feature is a big step towards "agentic commerce," where AI assistants do more than just find information for us; they actually take action. It’s a powerful new way to make sales, no doubt about it. But it’s important to be clear about what it is and what it isn’t. At the end of the day, it’s a sales tool, not a customer support solution.

Why you still need a dedicated AI support agent

While ChatGPT can now sell one of your products, it can’t handle the tricky, specific, and often urgent questions that pop up after the sale. Customers will still have questions about their order status, returns, or how to use the thing they just bought. When that happens, the smooth chat experience disappears, and they’re right back where they started.

This is where having your own AI support agent becomes so important. For Shopify stores that want to provide a genuinely great customer experience from start to finish, you need an AI that lives in your world, not one that just sends you orders. This is where a solution like eesel AI gives you a much more integrated and controllable way forward.

Key advantages of an integrated AI solution

• You’re in the driver’s seat: With eesel AI’s AI Chatbot, you get to decide the AI’s personality, tone of voice, and exactly what information it uses. It represents your brand, not OpenAI’s. You can easily connect your Shopify store, help center, and other docs to give it a full picture of your business.

• Connect sales and support: An integrated chatbot doesn’t just make a sale and vanish. It can handle post-purchase questions by looking up order info in Shopify, answer tough product questions using your help docs, and hand things off to a human agent in your helpdesk (like Gorgias or Zendesk) when needed.

A look at the eesel AI dashboard, showing how it connects to various platforms like Shopify and Zendesk, which is different from the standalone Shopify ChatGPT checkout feature.

• Train it on your business: eesel AI learns from your past support tickets and unique knowledge, not some generic global model. This makes sure its answers are tailored to your products, policies, and brand voice, giving customers accurate and helpful responses every time.

• Go live in minutes: Forget about long sales calls and needing developers. You can set up eesel AI completely on your own. Connect your Shopify store and helpdesk with a click and start automating support right away.

• Test before you launch: Worried about an AI talking to your customers? eesel AI’s simulation mode lets you test your setup on thousands of your past tickets before going live. You can see exactly how it will perform, check its resolution rate, and tweak its responses until you’re completely confident.

The eesel AI simulation mode, which allows merchants to test their AI agent's performance, a key advantage over the basic Shopify ChatGPT checkout feature.

Here’s a quick comparison of the two approaches:

Feature	Shopify ChatGPT Checkout	eesel AI for Shopify
Primary Goal	Drive new sales transactions	Automate support & drive sales
Control	Limited (controlled by OpenAI)	Full (custom persona, knowledge, actions)
Integrations	Limited to the transaction	Connects Shopify, helpdesk, docs, Slack, etc.
Post-Sale Support	None (user must find your support channels)	Seamless (order lookup, FAQs, human escalation)
Setup	Merchant application process	Self-serve, go live in minutes
Testing	Not available	Powerful simulation on past tickets

This video explains how the new built-in Shopify checkout will bring in-app purchases directly to ChatGPT.

Embrace conversational AI on your own terms

The Shopify ChatGPT checkout feature is a genuinely exciting development. It’s a clear sign of where e-commerce is headed, offering an incredible opportunity for merchants to reach a huge new audience with almost no friction.

However, for a truly solid and on-brand customer experience, you need more than a checkout button in someone else’s app. By bringing in a dedicated AI support solution like eesel AI, you can use the power of conversational AI across the entire customer journey, from their first question to their post-purchase needs, all while keeping full control over your brand and customer relationships.

Ready to build an AI agent that really works for your Shopify store? Get started with eesel AI for free.