OpenAI have added shopping capabilities to ChatGPT, meaning that AI Shopping is becoming a reality and one that’s likely to influence consumer buying habits into the future.
We’re excited to announce we’ve launched several improvements to ChatGPT search, and today we’re starting to roll out a better shopping experience.
– OpenAI
When a ChatGPT user query suggests shopping intent, ChatGPT can display relevant product options in visually rich carousels, provide additional product details, and link users to websites where they can learn more or make a purchase.
A product appears in the visual carousel when ChatGPT perceives it’s relevant to the user’s intent. ChatGPT assesses intent based on the user’s query and other available context, such as memories or custom instructions. ChatGPT will consider general factors, such as price, customer ratings, and ease of use, as well as specific criteria provided by the user including previously indicated preferences…. yes Big brother is really watching you and AI will remember EVERYTHING you’ve ever shared with it!
When determining which products to surface, ChatGPT considers:
- OpenAI safety standards.
- Structured metadata from third-party providers (e.g., price, product description) and other third-party content (e.g., reviews).
- Model responses generated by ChatGPT before it considers any new search results.
The important one here is the ‘third-party providers’, AI Shopping isn’t necessarily going to scrape the entire Internet and indeed OpenAI’s own help page says:
For more information about how third-party search providers may further process search queries, please refer to:
Yep, that’s a very short list of one search engine and it’s Bing, so if you are spending all your time optimising for Google Search (and in the UK you could be forgiven as it’s the default search engine for just about everyone!), then you are potentially missing out on the advent of AI Shopping.
Interestingly, there are some things you can do to help get your products surfaced. OpenAI says that when a user clicks on a product, they may show a list of merchants offering it. This list is generated based on merchant and product metadata we receive from third-party providers (Bing). They go on to say that currently, the order in which we display merchants is predominantly determined by these providers (Yep, this is Bing again!). OpenAI don’t currently re-rank merchants based on factors such as price, shipping, or return policies although they do expect this to evolve as they continue to improve the shopping experience.
And on evolving their AI Shopping experience, OpenAI are exploring ways for merchants to provide them their product feeds directly, which will help ensure more accurate and current listings. If you’re interested in participating there’s an interest form you can complete and OpenAI we’ll notify you once submissions open.
Oh, and finally, if you want to get started with AI Shopping, download the ChatGPT Google Chrome extension and make ChatGPT your default search engine!
