What Are ChatGPT’s New Features, And How Do They Help ECommerce?

OpenAI has begun releasing a shopping upgrade for ChatGPT. The feature appears in GPT-4o and 4o-mini and lets the chatbot answer retail questions with lively image carousels, prices and shop links. According to an OpenAI post, the tool reaches Plus, Pro, Free and even logged-out visitors, and the firm says complete coverage should arrive within days.

Instead of plain text lists, the chatbot now shows pictures, brief titles and main facts about each item. A user who types “I need matching coats for two Labradors” sees coats in different sizes, with star scores and price tags, all inside the same chat window.

OpenAI clarified that the listings are not adverts and no retailer pays for placement. The system chooses goods on its own, guided only by what the user seems to want.

How Does ChatGPT Decide Which Items To Surface?

The model reads each request, guesses buying intent and even checks memories the user has shared. If a person wrote months ago that they dislike clown themes, the engine keeps clown outfits off the list while still showing playful options.

It then checks data from outside sources, such as product metadata, shop catalogues and public ratings. Those figures give clues on cost, quality and ease of use. Public comments often steer the ranking too, since repeated praise or complaints point to clear patterns. When a budget cap is present, the price filter carries more weight than comfort or finish.

Before fetching live search data, ChatGPT drafts an answer to confirm it has understood the brief. Only after that step does it reach out for extra facts, which helps keep hallucinations down and limits stale prices.

For safety, OpenAI said it will block items that breach its content rules, so weapons or fake medicines will not appear in the basket.

What Does The Update Mean For Shoppers And Retailers?

OpenAI counted more than 1 billion web searches inside the chatbot during the last week alone, when they tweeted, “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. Search has become one of our most popular & fastest growing features, with over 1 billion web searches just in the past week.”

During the 2024 holiday season merchants noticed a jump in traffic from AI-assisted searches, PYMNTS reported. Faster product discovery kept buyers on course and cut the clicks needed to finish a purchase.

A handy feature lets users message ChatGPT through WhatsApp for price checks and live sports scores, bringing the adviser into the same chat app many shoppers already keep open all day.

How Can Sellers Make Sure Their Goods Appear?

OpenAI’s crawler, named OAI-SearchBot, scouts the web for pages it can quote inside ChatGPT. Site owners need to let the bot through their robots.txt file; otherwise their catalogue will stay hidden.

Every time ChatGPT sends a reader to a shop, the link carries the tag utm_source=chatgpt.com. This marker lets marketing teams track clicks in analytics dashboards and judge the real value of chatbot referrals.

OpenAI plans a direct feed option soon where merchants will be able to upload stock lists to the platform so prices and availability stay up to date. Direct feeds should cut lags in price changes that can confuse buyers. A sign up form is already live for those who want early notice.

Ads do not influence the placement, though the lineup of shops that sell the same item depends on data handed over by partner feeds. OpenAI says it will fine tune that order later.

A feedback link sits under each carousel, so users can rate the accuracy of the picks through “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” buttons and write extra comments, so that OpenAI can keep working on improving the service.