OpenAI is scaling back its plans to introduce shopping directly inside the general ChatGPT chatbot, pivoting instead to a focus on having checkouts take place inside of specific apps within its interface. Shoppers will now either need to pay through a retailer's app or be redirected to their website to complete purchase.
OpenAI initially launched Instant Checkout in October 2025 in partnership with Etsy and Walmart, and then slowly added a handful of Shopify merchants, with plans to take a cut of transactions that were completed through ChatGPT. However after the initial hype subsided, there were signs that the initiative was slowing, including as recently as February when it was revealed that OpenAI hadn't yet set up systems to collect and remit state sales taxes.
An OpenAI spokesperson told The Information:
“We’re evolving how we approach commerce in ChatGPT to better meet merchants and users where they are. Instant Checkout is moving to Apps, where purchases can happen more seamlessly. We appreciate our partners for learning with us and look forward to sharing more as we continue building in this area.”
That's okay, right? I'm sure the 9 people who ever used Instant Checkout for a single purchase will move on. If they had to choose, they'd probably rather have GPT-4 back anyway.
The reality of e-commerce in 2026 is that 50% of U.S. sales happen on Amazon and Shopify, as we learned a couple of weeks ago, and checkout on either platform couldn't be any easier or faster for consumers. Instant Checkout was a solution looking for a problem, without the infrastructure in place to actually solve it.
AI “progress” needs to slow the fuck down. The capabilities aren't keeping up with the hype, especially in OpenAI's case. However it can't slow down because investors have overextended their bets and want to see returns, so we'll continue to see unfinished, untested, poorly designed products hit the market too soon in search of a userbase that is mostly happy using AI to search for things and edit their photos.
We've officially entered the “AI is not as good as we said / thought” year. And on that note, if you can't even handle e-commerce checkout, you should NOT be dabbling in health or military.