Target joins OpenAI’s growing list of retail apps (techcrunch.com)

OpenAI and Target announced a new ChatGPT-powered shopping app that will enter beta next week, letting shoppers ask for ideas, browse and build multi-item baskets, buy groceries and complete checkout directly within a ChatGPT conversation. The launch is part of OpenAI’s broader push to add dedicated retail apps to ChatGPT (following partners like Canva, Expedia, Spotify and Zillow) and to drive in-chat commerce through features such as “Instant Checkout,” which enables purchases within conversational flows for retailers on platforms like Etsy and Shopify. Beyond the consumer-facing app, Target is expanding its enterprise partnership by rolling out ChatGPT Enterprise to roughly 18,000 employees at its headquarters and embedding OpenAI models in tools for supply-chain forecasting, store-process optimization, employee support, customer service, AI shopping assistants and personalized gift finding. Technically, this signals deeper LLM integration with retail back ends—inventory and checkout systems, forecasting pipelines and internal workflows—raising opportunities for better personalization, faster operations and new commerce revenue streams, while also highlighting important considerations around data security, payment handling and operational reliability as conversational AI moves into live retail systems.