ChatGPT improves product search with AI

ChatGPT is introducing a more visual shopping experience to help you discover, compare, and choose products without jumping between dozens of tabs.

The update lets you describe what you’re looking for, adjust your preferences in a conversation, and review options with more complete, up-to-date information. You can also upload an image to find similar items, such as a lamp you saw in a photo or a pair of sneakers with a specific design.

Compare products without leaving ChatGPT

Results appear with images and side-by-side comparisons. Instead of opening several stores to check each option, you can review details such as:

• Price
• Reviews
• Features
• Availability and product details

The goal is to handle one of the most time-consuming parts of shopping: deciding what to buy when you still have no specific model in mind. You can start with something broad, such as "I need a lightweight laptop for studying for less than 800 euros," and then narrow the search based on size, battery life, or other buyers’ opinions.

OpenAI says it has also improved speed, relevance, and product coverage. That should mean more useful results and less outdated information, although the experience will depend on the catalogs stores share.

What changes for stores

The feature relies on an expanded Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), a connection that lets retailers send their catalogs, products, and promotions to ChatGPT. This allows the system to display more complete information during the discovery phase.

Companies already integrated include Target, Sephora, Nordstrom, Lowe’s, Best Buy, The Home Depot, and Wayfair. Retailers can also participate through third-party providers such as Salesforce and Stripe.

Products from millions of Shopify merchants are already integrated into ChatGPT through Shopify Catalog. According to OpenAI, individual Shopify sellers do not need to do any additional work for their items to appear more accurately in relevant conversations.

Checkout goes back to the store

OpenAI is also changing its approach to shopping within ChatGPT. The company acknowledges that the first version of Instant Checkout did not give retailers the flexibility they wanted, so it now lets them use their own payment systems while OpenAI focuses its efforts on improving product discovery.

In practice, you can find and compare items in ChatGPT, then complete the purchase on the seller’s website through an integrated browser. The brand, customer account, and terms of each retailer remain central to the process.

Walmart is testing a deeper integration with an app inside ChatGPT. The experience takes users from discovery to a Walmart-tailored environment, with account linking, loyalty programs, and the company’s payment systems. It is already available in browsers, while the iOS and Android apps will arrive later.

The improvements are rolling out this week to ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus, and Pro users. For you, the most important change is that ChatGPT is no longer limited to answering which product might interest you: it now tries to bring together images, data, and comparisons to help you make a decision. The key questions will be how broad and up to date the selection is, and how much control stores retain over the final shopping experience.