OpenAI and Instacart are launching a new grocery shopping experience directly inside ChatGPT. This feature allows customers to brainstorm meal ideas, create a grocery list, and complete their checkout, all without ever leaving the chat interface.
This move builds upon an existing partnership between the two companies. More than two years ago, Instacart launched an in-app AI search tool powered by ChatGPT, designed to help shoppers ask questions about dinner ideas or dietary needs. The relationship has deepened following the move of former Instacart CEO Fidji Simo, who was already an OpenAI board member, to join OpenAI as the CEO of Applications in May.
Agentic commerce, which refers to using AI tools to conduct shopping research and make purchases on a user’s behalf, is a current priority for OpenAI. The company’s most recent developer day focused on plans to build apps directly into ChatGPT. In an early preview, ChatGPT launched integrations with apps like Booking.com, Canva, Coursera, Expedia, Figma, Spotify, and Zillow. Since then, OpenAI has announced further partnerships with retailers like Target and Intuit.
Leading up to this year’s holiday shopping season, both OpenAI and Perplexity announced in-app features to help users decide what products to buy. For example, you could ask ChatGPT to find the best deal on a gaming laptop that matches specific criteria. Adobe has predicted that AI-assisted online shopping will grow by 520% during the 2025 U.S. holiday season.
Despite ChatGPT’s immense popularity, OpenAI is not yet profitable and may not be for several more years, if ever. Its products are extremely resource-intensive, and even subscription fees do not fully cover the compute power required. These new agentic commerce tools could provide OpenAI with another revenue stream, as the company will take an undisclosed small fee when it helps merchants make a sale. However, it would take a tremendous volume of ChatGPT-based shopping for these fees to make a meaningful impact on OpenAI’s financial position.