Shopify integrated its merchant catalog into ChatGPT, allowing shoppers to discover and purchase products from Shopify stores without leaving the chat. This sounds like déjà vu, doesn't it? Didn't we just read this news? Oh wait, that was Instant Checkout.
To be clear — this is NOT Instant Checkout, which as you know, OpenAI stepped back from. In fact, I wouldn't even call it “agentic commerce,” although Shopify certainly does. I would define it more as “agentic discovery” with an “embedded checkout experience,” which is great in its own right. In fact, I actually think it's better than Instant Checkout because it allows merchants to have more control over their individual shopping experiences, which is ultimately a win for shoppers too.
Shopify President Harley Finkelstein posted a video on LinkedIn explaining how it works:
-
A Shopper asks ChatGPT for a product recommendation.
-
ChatGPT surfaces the most relevant products through Shopify Catalog.
-
When a shopper decides to buy, the purchase happens on the merchant's own storefront through an in-app browser.
-
Given that the checkout experience is pulling from the merchant's store itself, the shopping experience carries through including subscriptions, bundles, and payment preferences.
Finkelstein said:
“For merchants, it is effortless. No additional complexity. Your products become shoppable by default, and your relationship with your customers is yours, always… Merchants just got access to hundreds of millions of potential new customers overnight, and shoppers just got access to an entirely new, totally bespoke shopping experience. This is the new era of commerce, powered by Shopify.”
Alongside the announcement, Shopify made its Agentic plan publicly available, which allows brands not selling on Shopify to add their products to Shopify Catalog and sell across AI channels, which now include ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, AI Mode in Google Search, and the Gemini app. I covered the Agentic plan in detail back in January when it was first announced, though it was on a waitlist back then and now it's available to all merchants.
I wrote back in January about the Agentic plan:
“Shopify's not becoming a marketplace. It's instead turning the entire Internet into its marketplace. By creating a unified gateway and product data hub that connects merchants on any e-commerce platform to its integrations with commerce partners, Shopify is positioning itself to become the host of the Internet's master product graph.”
Absolutely brilliant moves by Shopify all around.