OpenAI launches ChatGPT Wallet letting its agents buy goods for users

Key points

• OpenAI launched ChatGPT Wallet on Friday, letting its "dots" AI agents buy items for users after each purchase is approved.
• The payment feature was built with American Express, Mastercard and Visa, and cardholders keep their existing card rewards and protections.
• OpenAI says it takes no cut of transactions for now, while United Airlines and Amazon block shopping agents on their platforms.

OpenAI on Friday launched ChatGPT Wallet, a payment feature that lets its "dots" AI agents make purchases for users. The company built it with American Express, Mastercard and Visa, and cardholders keep their existing credit card rewards and protections.

The launch is a second attempt at AI shopping. OpenAI introduced an "Instant Checkout" feature last fall and quickly pivoted away from it. By March it had rolled out a revamped shopping experience aimed at helping users find and compare products. Wallet extends that work from discovery to payment. Chaya Nayak, who leads product for monetization and payments at OpenAI, said the feature builds on those earlier efforts, and that the next step is getting shoppers through to a purchase once they have found something they want. The launch comes as more consumers explore personal AI agents to manage calendars, book travel and handle other daily tasks.

Users enter their card information once, then ask their dot to find items to buy. Each purchase must be approved with a security check. OpenAI says its agents never access the card details themselves. Instead, the payment networks give the dot a payment token holding a card number, security code and expiration date that apply to one transaction only. OpenAI is not taking a cut of transactions to start, though the company has said Wallet could eventually become a new revenue stream. The dots agents were first introduced at OpenAI's developer conference in late September.

The scale of the user base is the company's main asset here. ChatGPT had more than 1.2 billion weekly active users and nearly 100 million paying users at the end of the third quarter. Gebb, who spoke for OpenAI in an interview, said the company can decide how far to "turn up the volume" on Wallet. He said it made sense to watch the feature closely, start it in a contained environment and keep expanding from there.

Nayak said the company's focus is on merchants and card networks rather than shoppers for now. "Our goal here is to really focus on merchants and our network partners," she said. She added that the ecosystem will need time to build the infrastructure needed for the experience to work well across merchant sites.

Merchants are still deciding how to handle personal AI agents, and some have shut them out. United Airlines said Wednesday that it will block agents from its systems when booking tickets. Amazon does not allow agents to buy products on its platform. Business Insider reported that some merchants may block agents, which could limit where Wallet works. OpenAI said agentic commerce is still in its early days. It published tools and guidance for businesses, including how to check that their websites are not blocking OpenAI's agents by mistake.

Sources: Bloomberg, Business Insider, CNBC