PURCHASES THROUGH CHATGPT. INSTANT CHECKOUT AND ACP.

31/10/2025
Updated on 20/01/2026

OpenAI emphasizes that more than 800 million people turn to ChatGPT every week for help in solving everyday tasks, including searching for favorite products.

Therefore, starting from September 29, 2025, ChatGPT will help people buy and sell with the help of the instant checkout service.

Offering new ways for joint shopping by people, neural network agents, and companies, OpenAI introduced ACP - Agentic Commerce Protocol .

At the initial stage of the Instant Checkout service by OpenAI, users of ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Free plans from the USA can make purchases directly from Etsy sellers in the USA right in the chat. The service is also expanding to more than a million Shopify sellers, such as Glossier, SKIMS, Spanx, and Vuori. The Instant Checkout function already supports purchases of individual items. In the future, they promise to add carts with multiple items and expand the list of sellers and regions.

Existing ChatGPT subscribers can pay for a purchase with their card or make an express payment by saving these payment methods in their OpenAI account.

When a user asks ChatGPT a question about purchases, it shows the most relevant products from across the internet. Product search results are sorted exclusively by relevance for the user.

If a product supports the instant checkout function, users can click “Buy,” confirm the order, delivery, and payment details, and complete the purchase without leaving the chat. Orders, payments, and fulfillment are processed by the seller using their existing systems. ChatGPT acts as the user’s agent, ensuring secure transmission of information between the user and the seller, similar to a digital personal shopping consultant.

Sellers pay a small commission for completed purchases, but this service is free for users, does not affect prices, and does not influence product search results in ChatGPT. Products with the already added instant checkout function do not have priority in search results. When sorting several sellers selling the same product, ChatGPT takes into account factors such as availability, price, quality, whether the seller is the primary seller, and whether the instant checkout function is enabled, in order to optimize the user experience.

Also, OpenAI put forward three important concepts of the agentic commerce protocol. The company believes that for sellers it is important to have a structured data exchange about products with OpenAI, so that ChatGPT can accurately display their products in search and purchase results.

The second important point is called by OpenAI the processing of ChatGPT orders through its addressing the seller’s Agentic Commerce protocol endpoints to create or update a checkout session and securely exchange information.

The third important point, according to OpenAI, is payment delegation, which will allow expanding the possibilities for buyers and sellers.

How the Agentic Commerce Protocol works.

The Instant Checkout service works on the basis of the Agentic Commerce Protocol developed by OpenAI and the advanced payment service STRIPE.

At Stripe they stated that agentic commerce implies the use of neural network agents for autonomous discovery, evaluation, and completion of transactions on behalf of buyers in digital interfaces. Also, at Stripe they explained that seller enterprises should use the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) open-source specification to set up the checkout process through a neural network agent, which allows any compatible agent to securely initiate the checkout process. For example, this can be done by agents operating on the MCP protocol or the hypertext REST.

For neural network platforms that will configure their buyer-agents, Stripe also recommended using ACP to allow buyers to make transactions directly with sellers in agent applications.

In addition, Stripe explained the way of obtaining data through the SharedPaymentToken (SPT) object for secure transmission of payment data and risk signals to companies without disclosing the actual credentials. SPTs are limited in scope and transaction execution time to enhance security.

To sell through agents, the seller should register on Stripe, obtain an API key, and connect their online store. They must enable direct loading of the https://js.stripe.com script on every page of the site in the "head", as well as configure the ACP protocol specification. The neural network agent will be able to directly send data about selected products from the ChatGPT application to the seller in order to initiate the payment procedure. Then the payment goes through the usual Stripe procedure.

ON THE BUYER’S SIDE. The integrated Stripe buyer application collects the data entered by the buyer in the payment window about payment methods: bank card, other payment services (for example, PayPal). Using https://js.stripe.com, the application sends via HTTPS the payment data in an encrypted POST request to the Stripe server, initiating the creation of a .json- PaymentMethod with a unique temporary binding ID, but already without the CVC and other secret card data of the buyer. The PaymentMethod ID is returned via HTTPS through the SDK to the buyer with a response to the request.

The integrated Stripe application of the buyer, having a PaymentMethod, sends a request to the Stripe API to obtain the SharedPaymentToken identifier as confirmation of the successful start of the payment process. To create a SharedPaymentToken, the request specifies a funds limit (max_amount), PaymentMethod, currency, expiration date, seller ID, price, and product data. After this, Stripe saves the SharedPaymentToken and waits for the seller's request with information about the product and the payment amount.

ON THE SELLER'S SIDE. When the user has entered the data on the "payment" page, the seller receives on their server from the product page a signal that the buyer has initiated the integrated Stripe application, after which the seller's server through the API requests from Stripe the SharedPaymentToken for using the buyer's PaymentMethod.

Upon request, the Stripe API copies the PaymentMethod and gives the seller a .json SharedPaymentToken with usage parameters (token expiration date, seller ID, maximum payment amount, currency).

Having received the SharedPaymentToken, based on the information from it, the seller's server again addresses the Stripe API and transmits the payment amount, currency, Shared_payment_token, and other data necessary for the actual payment for the selected products. Based on this request, Stripe creates PaymentIntent and checks the possibility of debiting, comparing the payment amount with the available maximum amount in the SharedPaymentToken. After that, it returns to the seller's server a .json with the “status” field, which the seller checks. If it indicates that Stripe has confirmed the possibility of debiting ("succeeded"), then the seller changes the product status for the buyer on the site to "purchased". If it says "requires_confirmation", then the seller via HTTPS sends a POST request to the Stripe server for payment confirmation by the buyer, after which again checks whether the “status” has changed to "succeeded", and whether the product can be delivered to the buyer. When receiving the status "requires_payment_method", the seller understands that everything needs to be repeated from the beginning, since the payment did not go through.

In this process, the seller and buyer do not contact each other directly regarding payment. All data goes through Stripe.

Stripe recommends that sellers properly configure the ways of accepting payments from buyers.

Stripe offers to set up payment acceptance with one integration. For this, the server should initiate the creation of one PaymentIntent object (.json payment intent) for each order or client session, into which the attribute data listed here are written. These data are payment amount, automatic payment methods, currency, and others selected in the Stripe dashboard. The PaymentIntent API is capable of processing complex payment flows with a status that changes during its "lifecycle". It tracks the payment from creation to order completion and, if necessary, initiates additional stages of authentication.

At the same time, PaymentIntent goes through two Stripe APIs: 1. Payment Intent API (PaymentIntent): used for collecting payments and immediate charging of funds from the customer. It creates a payment and processes the transaction for charging funds. 2. Setup Intent API (SetupIntent): used for collecting and saving information about payment methods for further use without charging funds. Sets up payment data without processing payments.

PaymentIntent can be accessed later to view the history of payment attempts for a specific session. In the end, PaymentIntent creates a maximum of one successful charge.

Along with creating a payment intent object .json you can visualize the payment object and confirm the payment either in the buyer's browser or on your own server, which will prevent the client from arbitrarily setting the price. When setting up the server, the required Stripe SDK library is used.

Presenting ACP, OpenAI provided an open source code. On the page, examples of the specification are posted — .json files with fields that the neural network agent must fill in so that the seller understands what and how the buyer wants to purchase.

In addition, OpenAI offers payment service providers the specification of delegated payment for full integration with OpenAI. This specification allows safe exchange of data with payment service providers or merchants certified under the PCI DSS level 1 standard, using their own storages.

OpenAI prepares a one-time request for a delegated payment and sets the maximum amount to be paid and the expiration period depending on what the user selected for purchase in the ChatGPT user interface. This payload is transferred to the seller's trusted payment provider, which will process the transaction. The payment service provider responds with a payment token, which OpenAI passes to the seller for completing the payment. The above-described SharedPaymentToken from Stripe is the first implementation compatible with the delegated payment specification. Soon, as promised by OpenAI, other payment service providers will also appear.

OpenAI has also created AgentKit – a set of tools for developers and enterprises that allows creating, deploying, and optimizing agents. The main tools included in the kit are: Agent Builder: a visual canvas for creating and managing versions of multi-agent workflows. Connector Registry: a central place for administrators to manage the interaction of data and tools across OpenAI products. ChatKit: a set of tools for embedding customizable chat agents into applications.

The payment system PayPal also announced in October 2025 the implementation of the Agentic Commerce Protocol. Earlier, PayPal announced a partnership with the neural search engine Perplexity. PayPal will support OpenAI Instant Checkout through a delegated payments API, managing card payment processing.

OpenAI has released an SDK with MCP for developing applications that can be invoked via ChatGPT. Applications on the Apps SDK platform can include authorization via OpenAI. The rules contain extensive guidelines and restrictions. OpenAI encourages the development of applications for selling physical goods. In addition, only trusted sellers have the ability to offer fast purchases via ChatGPT in their applications.

Google has also introduced its own commerce protocol, Universal Commerce Protocol.

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