ChatGPT can now help you with shopping. On Friday, OpenAI launched a new wallet feature that allows its assistant, named dots, to help you decide what to buy and complete the purchase on your behalf.
This option will initially be available to a small number of American ChatGPT Pro subscribers, who must be at least 18 years old and hold a Visa, Mastercard, or American Express card issued by the United States.
OpenAI indicates that the user has full control over the purchase. Before the checkout process is completed, the user can view the product, the total price, and the payment card that will be used to complete the transaction. In addition, the user must also directly approve the purchase through Face ID or security verification methods such as fingerprints, which will also leave a record of the transaction.
At the time of the launch of this new feature, the AI tools aimed at consumers are still looking for the right market fit, especially in terms of how they can help people complete various tasks more efficiently. Although companies such as DoorDash and Uber have reported relatively low volumes of orders placed through their AI agents so far, Meta's Muse already has over 10 million users, and AI assisted shopping has become a popular activity within its app.
Other individuals, such as Instinct, who act as agents, also support purchasing on behalf of users.
Therefore, it is not surprising that OpenAI wants to delve deeper into this field and launch its own proxy shopping feature.
To get started, ChatGPT, subscribers need to add a qualified payment card to the new ChatGPT Wallet first, and then have their dot assist them with the purchase. (This setting only needs to be done once; users do not need to re-enter payment information for each purchase.) When a transaction is required, the Wallet of ChatGPT will deduct the amount using payment tokens. Payment tokens are a substitute for the user's actual card information, so this information will not be shared with dot or merchants.
OpenAI indicates that merchants will automatically receive the information required to fulfill orders from dot, such as delivery addresses and contact details. The company also noted that customers who shop through dots can still earn credit card rewards and enjoy the protections typically associated with credit cards, such as the right to dispute transactions.
This launch is limited to a small number of users only, and it will help OpenAI test and improve this feature and its capabilities before a wider rollout. In the future, the company plans to give users more control over this feature, such as setting consumption limits or configuring other parameters around purchase categories and time periods, thereby allowing agents to handle certain purchases more autonomously.
OpenAI also hopes to expand the proxy shopping feature to more supported retailers. This may face challenges in certain areas, as retailers are preventing AI proxies from using their websites; in the shopping sector, the largest retailer that prohibits AI proxies is Amazon, which prefers to direct users to its own AI proxy Alexa.
To help retailers adapt to agency-based commerce, OpenAI has also released Commerce Partner Playbook, providing tools and guidance for websites that wish to support agency shopping.
