OpenAI's Shopping Rollout Heats Up Battle With Search and Retail Leaders

OpenAI has unveiled a sweeping upgrade to ChatGPT’s search capabilities, including a new ad-free shopping feature that allows users to find, compare, and purchase products directly—without sponsored placements.

The rollout marks a strategic push to broaden ChatGPT’s utility and intensify competition with Google’s ad-based search model.

OpenAI posted on X (formerly known as Twitter), alongside the announcement:

“Product results are chosen independently and are not ads.”

Announced on 28 April, the update comes as ChatGPT surpassed 1 billion real-time web searches in a single week, an impressive milestone for a feature launched just last November.

The new shopping tool—initially covering categories like electronics, fashion, beauty, and home goods—detects shopping intent in user queries and delivers product listings with prices, reviews, and direct purchase links.

The feature is available globally to all users, including those not logged into ChatGPT.

By offering real-time search and ad-free shopping, OpenAI is challenging a decades-old model that has earned Google hundreds of billions through paid ads.

In addition to shopping, ChatGPT now offers enhanced citations that link to specific parts of its responses, autocomplete, trending search insights, and live answers via WhatsApp through 1-800-ChatGPT.

Websites that allow OpenAI’s crawler to index their content can appear in ChatGPT’s search results, and outbound clicks from the chatbot will be tagged to reflect ChatGPT as the referral source.

As these features roll out to Plus, Pro, Free, and logged-out users over the coming days, the AI giant is clearly signalling its ambition to reshape how people search—and shop—online.

OpenAI Aims to Position ChatGPT as All-Encompassing

OpenAI is steadily evolving ChatGPT into a multifunctional “everything app”—a single destination that integrates search, voice assistance, and video generation.

This strategy is aimed at deepening user engagement while fending off rising competition from rivals like Anthropic, Google’s Gemini, Elon Musk’s xAI, and search-focused challenger Perplexity AI, which has also expanded its shopping capabilities.

Among the latest upgrades introduced on Monday is a new shopping feature, positioning ChatGPT more directly against trusted consumer review platforms like CNET and Wirecutter, owned by The New York Times.

Notably, an OpenAI spokesperson confirmed that the company will not collect affiliate revenue from purchases made through the chatbot—emphasizing utility over monetisation, at least for now.

Monetisation Remains an Open Question

Unlike traditional affiliate marketing—where publishers earn commissions through product-linked referrals—ChatGPT’s shopping features appear focused more on enhancing user experience than immediate revenue generation.

OpenAI’s Matt Fry noted the company is still experimenting with monetisation models but has not finalised a strategy.

He said:

“We are going to be experimenting with a whole bunch of different ways that this can work.”

OpenAI has also begun testing autonomous AI agents capable of browsing and making purchases on users’ behalf.

One such tool, called Operator, can navigate websites to assist with tasks like booking trips or ordering groceries.

However, early feedback described the agent as clunky and hard to control.

For now, ChatGPT users must still complete purchases through external retailer websites—but OpenAI is exploring partnerships, including with Shopify, to eventually enable seamless in-app transactions.