OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, is working on letting users of its popular Gen AI tool shop within the chatbot interface, according to The Financial Times.
The AI giant has been looking for ways to expand its business model, which primarily relies on income from user subscriptions.
In April, the company announced it would be partnering with e-commerce platform Shopify, which fuels TikTok Shop – the Chinese social platform’s in-app retail space.
Currently, OpenAI displays items on the platform with an option to click-through to retailer websites.
However, according to The Financial Times, ChatGPT plans to integrate a checkout function within its own interface, enabling users to purchase products without leaving the chatbot. This would let OpenAI achieve revenue even from users of its free offering.
The move will bolster OpenAI’s revenue, which in recent has aimed to convert from being partly nonprofit to a full for-profit firm.
A Disruption to Search
The rise of AI chatbots has overhauled the way people search for information, including how they decide, and find, what they want to buy.
With less people using Google, fewer potential consumers have been navigating to websites.
To regain some competitive advantage, Google created its own AI integration ‘AI Overview’ which summarises search results at the top of a page, so that a user doesn’t have to navigate to websites at all.
This has particularly impacted the ad-oriented economic models of online content creators and publishers.
ChatGPT users being able to search for and purchase products entirely within its interface will certainly disrupt the online ecosystem further.
Brands will be forced to optimise their online presence to appear highly in ChatGPT search results, and to be picked up by AI agents – which are growing in prominence.
