Retailgentic: Agentic Commerce meets Retail and Brands OpenAI Chief Economist Ronnie Chatterji: "How People Use ChatGPT" Deep Dive Discussion
Nov 6, 2025
Ronnie Chatterji, Chief Economist at OpenAI and former Duke University professor, shares insights from his study on ChatGPT usage. He discusses the evolution of consumer behavior from asking to doing, revealing surprising data insights. AI's role in transforming shopping, particularly through voice and vision, is highlighted as a game-changer. Chatterji also emphasizes the importance of writing support and notes that purchasable products currently represent just 2.1% of interactions. The future of agentic commerce promises exciting developments.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Classify Messages To Scale Research
- Use classifiers, not human reading, to analyze millions of de-identified messages while protecting privacy.
- Sample conversation messages across time and build reproducible methods for public peer review.
Buying Jeans Through ChatGPT
- Ronnie Chatterji described buying a pair of jeans using ChatGPT by sharing past brands, sizes, and style goals.
- He found the experience easier and preferred it to traditional in-store shopping.
Asking Still Leads, Doing Follows
- Asking for information dominates ChatGPT usage, with doing (task completion) second and self-expression a distant third.
- Ronnie Chatterji expects the share of "doing" to rise as agentic capabilities improve and users learn to rely on them.