OpenAI Moves into E-Commerce with Commission-Based Model for ChatGPT Sales (cross-border-magazine.com)

OpenAI is preparing to embed a full checkout flow inside ChatGPT and take a commission on sales generated through its conversational product-discovery tools. The company is reportedly prototyping payment infrastructure with partners and exploring a roughly 2% affiliate commission when users complete purchases after features like Deep Research. OpenAI formalized an April 2025 partnership with Shopify—whose platform supports some 2.6 million U.S. stores—to co-develop conversational commerce and leverage Shopify’s Checkout Kit, though Shopify has modified its robots.txt to block fully autonomous “buy-for-me” agents that make purchases without human review. The move is significant because it turns ChatGPT into a potential retail interface and new monetization channel (OpenAI’s mid-2025 annualized run rate is ~$10B with a year-end target of $12.7B), while diversifying revenue beyond subscriptions amid prior losses. Technically and commercially it raises issues around merchant control, AI optimization (emergent “AIO” tactics to win recommendations), data/privacy risks, and regulatory transparency: merchants gain a direct sales channel but face commission fees and new optimization demands, platforms must balance integration vs. abuse, and consumers need protections against opaque or automated purchases. If executed with clear safeguards and standards, conversational commerce could reshape discovery and e-commerce funnels — but it also amplifies questions about trust, liability, and platform governance.