OpenAI plans to take a share of ChatGPT's shopping sales to boost revenue

Sam Altman-led OpenAI is planning to take a share of ChatGPT's online product sales as the company aims to develop e-commerce features to boost its revenue, Financial Times reported.

 

OpenAI, which is headquartered in San Francisco, currently displays all of its products on ChatGPT, which takes users to the websites of the online retailers. In April, OpenAI also announced a partnership with Shopify, a payments provider. Shopify provides checkout technology, which can be merged with other online services. For instance, the payments provider already powers TikTok's shopping feature on the social media platform.

 

The report added that OpenAI aims to merge a checkout system option into ChatGPT, allowing users to complete their transactions within the platform. Merchants, who will receive a payment and fulfill orders in such a way, will be required to pay a commission to OpenAI. 

 

The e-commerce push by OpenAI marks a significant shift for the loss-making startup, which has primarily made revenues from subscriptions to premium services. Taking a share from the sale of ChatGPT would allow the company a chance to make money from users of its free version, which has been an untapped source of revenue so far.

 

The move also aims to threaten Google's business model since consumers are now moving increasingly to artificial intelligence chatbots to conduct searches and discover products.

 

OpenAI and its partners, such as Shopify, have been presenting the early versions to brands and have been discussing financial terms. However, since the feature is still in the development stage, the details are likely to change, the report added.

 

ChatGPT's product recommendations

 

According to the report, the current recommendations made by ChatGPT are generated based on several factors, including whether they are relevant to the user's query and other available context, such as memory or instructions, like a specified budget.

 

The Sam Altman-led company has recently enhanced its memory, allowing ChatGPT to remember preferences of the users and providing them with more personalised responses. However, when a user clicks on any product, OpenAI may show a list of merchants offering the products.

 

According to a statement from OpenAI's website, "This list is generated based on merchant and product metadata we receive from third-party providers. Currently, the order in which we display merchants is predominantly determined by these providers."

 

It further added that OpenAI, while listing merchant options, does not factor in the price or shipping, but expects it to evolve as the company aims to improve the shopping experience of the users.