Agentic commerce
Agentic commerce is buying through an AI assistant that acts for the shopper, finding a product and, where the shop allows it, placing the order.
What it means
An agent, in this sense, is software that carries out a task on someone’s behalf. In agentic commerce the shopper says what they want, and an AI assistant does the searching, the comparing and, in some cases, the checkout.
OpenAI’s version is the Agentic Commerce Protocol, which it describes as “an open standard that serves as the connective layer between merchants and ChatGPT users”.1 Supporting Instant Checkout in ChatGPT takes three flows from the merchant: sharing a product feed, handling orders and checkout, and handling payments. At checkout, ChatGPT can “act as the customer’s AI agent”, with the checkout shown inside ChatGPT.2
The sale stays the shop’s. “The merchant accepts or declines the order” and charges the payment with its existing payment processor. OpenAI says Instant Checkout in ChatGPT “is currently available to approved partners”.2
Think of it like this
It is like sending someone to the shops with your list and your card. They choose from what is on the shelves and pay at the till, but the shop still makes the sale and handles any refund.
For example
A shopper asks ChatGPT for a water filter that fits a Brackmore KFR-320W fridge. If a shop’s feed lists a filter naming that model, ChatGPT can show it with its price and stock. Where the shop has checkout enabled, it can take the order in the chat. The shop then accepts it, charges the card and sends the parcel.
Why it matters
When an assistant does the shopping, your product data is all it sees, because there is no shop window to browse. OpenAI says the required feed fields “ensure correct display of price and availability”, so a wrong price or stock status is what the shopper is shown.2
Not to be confused with
Agentic commerce does not turn the assistant into a marketplace. OpenAI is not the merchant of record: the shop is, and it handles refunds and chargebacks.3
Sources
- OpenAI Developers, Agentic Commerce. Agentic Commerce Protocol.
- OpenAI Developers, Agentic Commerce. Key concepts.
- OpenAI Developers, Agentic Commerce. Agentic commerce in production.