OpenAI has enhanced its ChatGPT platform by adding shopping features to its search capabilities. This update, aims to create a personalized and streamlined online shopping experience for users worldwide. The new features offer product recommendations, images, reviews, and direct purchase links within the chat interface.
New Shopping Features in ChatGPT
Users can now ask detailed questions about products and receive tailored results in categories like fashion, beauty, home goods, and electronics. This integration is part of the default GPT-4o model and is available to ChatGPT Pro, Plus, Free, and logged-out users globally.
OpenAI incorporated structured metadata such as pricing, descriptions, and reviews from third-party sources into ChatGPT’s search, enabling relevant product suggestions without paid advertisements. The company does not earn commissions from purchases made through this feature.
Competition and User Engagement
This move positions ChatGPT as a direct competitor to platforms like Google in the online shopping and search arena. It offers users a more personalized experience, which OpenAI hopes will attract a broader user base. Over one billion web searches were conducted on ChatGPT in the week before the announcement.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, a key figure behind this development, has expressed cautious openness to “tasteful” advertising that involves affiliate fees but excludes paid priority placements. This reflects a shift from his earlier stance against ads in ChatGPT, as discussed in a recent interview.
Personalization and Features
For Pro and Plus users, OpenAI plans to soon integrate its memory feature with shopping. This allows ChatGPT to recall previous conversations and make highly personalized product recommendations.
Currently, these memory-based features are not accessible in the European Union, the UK, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein.
Additional Improvements
The update also introduces trending searches, similar to Google’s autocomplete, to enhance user experience. Furthermore, ChatGPT’s search functionality is now available on WhatsApp, allowing users to interact with the chatbot for up-to-date answers.
Earlier, OpenAI explored shopping via its AI agent platform, Operator, but with longer wait times. The new search-based shopping is faster and supports natural language queries effectively.
This update is part of OpenAI’s broader effort to enhance AI-based commerce and search capabilities, providing a more convenient and personalized way for users to discover products online.
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