OpenAI + Shopify: ChatGPT’s Quiet E‐Commerce Expansion

Welcome to First AI Movers Pro — your future-focused guide for succeeding in the age of AI-powered commerce.

Not long ago, launching an online store meant battling with clunky tools, navigating a digital ad maze, and hoping discovery algorithms favored your catalog. But times have changed—dramatically. Today, setting up a digital storefront is easier than ever, thanks to platforms like Shopify and the latest AI innovations. In fact, I’d argue there has never been a better time to be an early adopter, just like Amazon was in the early days of online commerce. The playing field is more level than you think, and the barriers to entry are lower than ever.

Having built recommender systems during the 2010s—and still deeply involved in that field—I’ve witnessed the evolution firsthand. The biggest shift? Tools keep getting smarter. What once required months of manual optimization can now be handled with a bit of code, strategic thinking, and—crucially—AI by your side. If you want your storefront to be found, it’s no longer just about buying ads; you can now leverage AI to design, optimize, and even personalize your online brand from day one. The effort is still there—no shortcuts—but our methods must evolve alongside the technology.

Let’s explore how OpenAI’s latest partnership with Shopify is quietly transforming e-commerce, blurring the lines between search engines, marketplaces, and intelligent AI shopping assistants, and what this means for those of us ready to move first.

OpenAI Integrates Shopify into ChatGPT Shopping Search

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is taking a strategic step into e-commerce, quietly enlisting Shopify as a shopping search partner. This means ChatGPT’s built-in search can now pull product data directly from Shopify’s vast network of online merchants, alongside Bing’s web results. The integration wasn’t trumpeted in a press release; instead, it was tucked into OpenAI’s documentation in mid-May and spotted weeks later by observant SEOs. Essentially, when you ask ChatGPT for a product recommendation or shopping advice, it’s not just searching the web in general – it’s also querying Shopify’s platform for relevant items. Why the stealthy launch? It highlights how quickly OpenAI is moving to position ChatGPT as an AI shopping assistant, without waiting for fanfare.

ChatGPT’s new shopping results can pull from multiple platforms. In this example, a query for “hunting dog supplies” returned products from Shopify-based stores (left and right) and Amazon (center), complete with images, prices, and ratings. OpenAI notes that these are organic results, not ads, chosen by the AI from third-party data. Anyway, if you're curious like I am, you will try to investigate for yourself whether the top recommendations are Shopify stores.

This Shopify partnership supercharges ChatGPT’s shopping capabilities. Since late April, ChatGPT’s search mode has been enhanced to show product listings with images, prices, and even “buy” buttons that take you to merchant websites. Now, with Shopify in the mix, ChatGPT can surface millions of Shopify merchants’ products in those results. For example, a user asking for the “best dog training bumper” might see a Shopify pet supply store’s item alongside one from Amazon, or a niche store hosted on Yahoo’s Turbify platform. In fact, OpenAI confirmed that ChatGPT’s shopping search draws from multiple e-commerce sources – Shopify and Bing (which covers the open web) today, and potentially more to come. Notably, any online store can apply to be included in ChatGPT’s results, but Shopify’s data is now plugged in by default. This gives Shopify merchants a new audience via ChatGPT without any extra effort (as long as they haven’t blocked OpenAI’s crawler). It’s a win–win: OpenAI improves answer quality with richer shopping data, and Shopify stores gain visibility in the emerging AI shopping channel.

OpenAI’s commerce play here is clear: by integrating directly with a significant retail platform, ChatGPT is evolving into an AI-driven product discovery engine. This encroaches on territory long dominated by Google (with its shopping ads and search listings) and Amazon (as the go-to product search for many). Unlike Google’s Shopping results, however, ChatGPT’s recommendations aren’t influenced by paid placement – “They are not ads… not sponsored,” insists OpenAI’s product lead. All results are organic and based on ChatGPT’s understanding of what products might best fit the query. In the long run, this move foreshadows an internet where AI assistants serve as the new storefronts. ChatGPT can conversationally guide a shopper from a broad query (“I need a gift for a 5-year-old who loves science”) to a few tailored product options pulled from across the web’s retailers. OpenAI isn’t building an online store of its own; instead, it’s positioning ChatGPT as the intelligent middle layer between consumers and retailers. Who needs a search engine results page or a marketplace browse filter if your AI can do the heavy lifting?

Key takeaways: OpenAI’s quiet Shopify integration shows how AI is collapsing the traditional steps of online shopping. ChatGPT can now aggregate options across many stores, potentially reducing the need for users to perform multiple searches on Google or visits to different websites. It underscores OpenAI’s ambitions in retail search (and perhaps eventually affiliate revenue). And it puts other platforms on notice: as AI-driven shopping becomes mainstream, the competitive lines between search engines, e-commerce platforms, and AI assistants are blurring.

Implications: AI as the New Middleman in Commerce

For brands and retailers, this development is a double-edged sword. On one hand, AI assistants like ChatGPT can deliver your products to interested consumers more directly. On the other hand, they can also “gatekeep” the customer’s journey. A recent Bain & Company analysis calls AI agents the “new middleman” for marketing, noting that buyers increasingly rely on AI recommendations and “zero-click” answers instead of browsing websites. In fact, 80% of consumers now use AI-driven results for a significant share of their searches, and many companies are seeing web traffic drop as a result. Adobe Analytics reported a whopping 1,200% increase in traffic to retailer sites from generative AI sources between mid-2024 and early 2025. This means more shoppers are letting AI curators (like ChatGPT, Bing Chat, or Google’s SGE) handle discovery, comparison, and even initial recommendations.

Platform risk for brands is real. If ChatGPT (or any popular AI agent) doesn’t surface your product, you effectively don’t exist to that consumer. The funnel from awareness to decision is compressed into a single AI interaction, giving brands fewer chances to appear or influence purchase decisions. Just as brands optimized for Google search results for years, they will now need to optimize for AI discovery. This might include ensuring your site isn’t blocking OpenAI’s crawler and implementing structured data so AI can easily ingest your product info. (OpenAI explicitly advises merchants to allow its OAI-SearchBot and plans to accept direct product feed submissions.) Retailers not on Shopify should consider joining OpenAI’s program to feed ChatGPT their catalog. We’re witnessing the birth of AI-era SEO: instead of vying for a page-one Google ranking, brands will vie to become the top AI-recommended option for a given user query or persona. And once an AI agent has its preferred picks, others may never even be seen.

For developers and e-commerce tech builders, OpenAI’s move highlights the opportunity to create new tools at the intersection of AI and shopping. ChatGPT with Shopify is a centralized example, but one can imagine specialized AI shopping assistants, plugins, or APIs emerging for different niches and platforms. The trend suggests that e-commerce experiences will become more conversational, personalized, and distributed across AI agents. Developers should consider integrating AI recommendations into online stores, leveraging ChatGPT’s API for commerce queries, or building companion agents (for price tracking, trend analysis, etc.) that plug into this ecosystem. In an AI-mediated commerce world, innovations that help brands maintain a direct relationship with customers (or help AI better understand a brand’s products and value) will be in demand. There’s also a rising need for analytics to understand AI-driven traffic and conversions – essentially “AI analytics” parallel to traditional web analytics.

Finally, consider the broader competitive landscape. Google is certainly not sitting idle – its Search Generative Experience is blending AI answers with shopping links, and Microsoft’s Bing (which partners with OpenAI) is powering parts of this ChatGPT experience. Amazon, meanwhile, has the advantage of being the end-point for many purchases; it’s reportedly working on its own AI chatbot for shopping assistance. The Shopify-OpenAI partnership shows an alliance strategy: platforms might team up with AI providers to counter heavier rivals. Shopify gains a new channel to funnel shoppers to its merchants (strengthening its position against Amazon’s dominance), and OpenAI gains a huge structured dataset of products. We may see more such partnerships or integrations – perhaps AI tying up with travel platforms, real estate listings, etc. It’s a reminder that AI is becoming the connective tissue between services, rather than a standalone destination.

Fun Fact: AI Shopping Origins 🚀

AI’s role in shopping isn’t as new as you might think. Amazon was actually an early pioneer – over 20 years ago, it began using algorithms to power its “Customers who bought this also bought” style product recommendations. Those early recommender systems were rudimentary by today’s standards, but they drove significant extra sales and set the stage for personalization in online retail. However, the earliest known AI shopping assistant goes back even further: all the way to 1995. That year, Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) built a tool called BargainFinder that automatically scoured the nascent web for the lowest prices on music CDs. It was basically a price-comparison bot – you’d input a CD title, and BargainFinder would query a handful of online music stores to find the cheapest offer. The “fun” twist? Some retailers hated it. A few music sellers quickly blocked BargainFinder’s access because they didn’t want to be undercut on price! BargainFinder is long defunct, but its legacy lives on in today’s price comparison sites and the very idea of digital agents working on behalf of consumers. It’s a great reminder that while technology changes, the fundamental tension in commerce – between empowered consumers and protective retailers – is an old story. 🤖🛍️

My Take

If there’s a single lesson from all this, it’s that the fundamentals of success haven’t changed—but the toolkit absolutely has. Whether you’re a solo maker or scaling a global brand, the opportunity to harness AI as your competitive advantage is very real, right now. The same drive that built early recommender engines is what powers today’s AI-driven discovery. You bring the vision and grit; AI delivers smarter insights, seamless integrations, and—perhaps most importantly—new ways to reach your audience in a crowded landscape.

So, my challenge for you: don’t just be a spectator as AI transforms commerce. Experiment. Test. Learn. Optimize. The pioneers of yesterday’s e-commerce—think Amazon—were simply the first to seize new technology and run with it. The tools at our disposal are more accessible and powerful than ever. Now’s your moment to get in early, shape your market, and ensure your brand is front and center the next time an AI assistant guides a shopper to their perfect product.

Keep building, keep optimizing, and, above all, keep moving first.

— Dr. Hernani Costa

This insight is made possible by our sponsor:

Start learning AI in 2025

Keeping up with AI is hard – we get it!

That’s why over 1M professionals read Superhuman AI to stay ahead.

• Get daily AI news, tools, and tutorials

• Learn new AI skills you can use at work in 3 mins a day

• Become 10X more productive

Sign up and start mastering AI