Marketplace Tech AI companies are eyeing your shopping cart and your data
Oct 13, 2025
Meghan McCarty Carino, a sharp Marketplace reporter, dives into the exciting world of AI in e-commerce. She discusses OpenAI's new checkout feature for ChatGPT, allowing users to buy items seamlessly. Meghan highlights how this creates valuable shopping data for advertisers and the potential for 'agentic' shopping, where AI makes purchases on our behalf. She also touches on the concerns retailers have about sharing data and how future ad formats in chatbots could affect trust. Get ready for a fascinating insight into the merging of AI and online shopping!
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Chatbots Moving Into Commerce
- OpenAI added checkout to ChatGPT via Etsy and Shopify partnerships, hinting at deeper shopping integration.
- This move could enable AI to research, select, and buy items for users, creating agentic shopping.
Shopping Generates Valuable Data
- Shopping through chatbots produces rich first-party data that boosts advertising value on platforms.
- Users are increasingly using chatbots for search and shopping because chat feels cleaner than ad-filled search engines.
AI Infrastructure Is Extremely Costly
- Big tech has spent massive sums building AI infrastructure, raising pressure to monetize AI services.
- AI's high operational cost makes finding profitable business models, like commerce integration, urgent.