OpenAI enshittification (i.e., instant checkout) is here (www.cbsnews.com)

OpenAI launched an "Instant Checkout" feature for ChatGPT that lets users buy products recommended in chat without leaving the app. Currently U.S. users can complete purchases from Etsy sellers in-chat, and a Shopify partnership will soon open access to over 1 million merchants (examples: Glossier, SKIMS, Steve Madden). The checkout flow was co‑developed with Stripe, supports single‑item purchases for now, and routes payment/fulfillment through the merchant while OpenAI takes a small fee on completed transactions. OpenAI frames this as "agentic commerce"—ChatGPT acts as the shopper’s agent, mediating discovery and the transaction while merchants retain control of payments, systems and customer relationships. The move is significant because it formalizes a new commerce channel where product discovery happens inside AI conversations rather than search or ads, creating a direct monetization stream for AI platforms and new distribution for sellers. Technical implications include tight integrations between LLM-driven intent detection, merchant catalogs (via Shopify/Etsy), and payment processors (Stripe), but current limits (single‑item purchases) and ecosystem control raise questions about user privacy, recommendation bias, platform fees, and competition. Amazon is pursuing a similar path with its "Buy for Me" feature, signaling that major platforms are racing to embed transactional agent capabilities into conversational AI. OpenAI also said it added features aimed at protecting younger users as part of the rollout.