Etsy pops 13% as OpenAI announces ChatGPT Instant Checkout for the shopping site (www.cnbc.com)

OpenAI launched Instant Checkout, a feature that lets ChatGPT users buy single items directly from U.S. Etsy sellers (with more than a million Shopify merchants, including Skims and Glossier, coming soon). The feature is available to U.S. ChatGPT Free, Plus and Pro users and uses stored payment info (via Stripe) so subscribers don't need to re-enter card details. Instant Checkout is powered by OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol — an open-sourced framework built with Stripe to let merchants integrate direct-pay flows — and OpenAI will take a transaction fee (details kept confidential), while users’ prices remain unchanged. OpenAI plans to add multi-item carts and expand regional availability. For the AI/ML community, the move is notable because it shifts large language models from information tools to action-oriented agents that complete real-world transactions, creating a potentially significant new revenue stream as OpenAI seeks to offset high compute costs. Technically, the Agentic Commerce Protocol standardizes agent-to-merchant interactions, enabling faster integrations and developer experimentation, but also raises questions about UX, privacy, data flows and regulatory oversight as LLMs handle payments at scale. Market reaction was immediate: Etsy shares jumped ~13% and Shopify ~5%, underscoring investor belief that AI-native checkout could reshape e-commerce traffic and conversion.