PayPal shares were up nearly 4 per cent after it signed a deal with OpenAI that would make it an early part of OpenAI’s efforts to broaden ChatGPT’s use for e-commerce.
OpenAI will soon integrate PayPal’s digital wallet into ChatGPT, enabling users to pay for items found through the leading consumer AI tool.
PayPal said it will adopt the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) to expand payments and commerce in ChatGPT. Millions of ChatGPT users will be able to check out instantly using PayPal, and PayPal will support payments processing for merchants leveraging OpenAI Instant Checkout.
PayPal will also connect its global merchant network to OpenAI, creating a platform for tens of millions of small businesses and the largest brands in the world to sell within ChatGPT.
Alex Chriss, President and CEO of PayPal, commented: “Hundreds of millions of people turn to ChatGPT each week for help with everyday tasks, including finding products they love, and over 400 million use PayPal to shop.
“By partnering with OpenAI and adopting the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), PayPal will power payments and commerce experiences that help people go from chat to checkout in just a few taps for our joint customer bases.”
Chriss later told CNBC: “Starting next year, both sides of PayPal’s ecosystem can plug into ChatGPT: PayPal users can purchase items through the AI platform, and its merchants can sell on it, with their inventory listed there.
“We’ve got hundreds of millions of loyal PayPal wallet holders who now will be able to click the ‘Buy with PayPal button’ on ChatGPT and have a safe and secure checkout experience.”
Chriss said both consumers and merchants have been verified by the fintech firm, reducing the risk of fraud for either group. Users can pull funds from linked bank accounts or credit cards, or stored balances, to pay for purchases, and they will get protections, package tracking and dispute resolution.
“It’s not just that a transaction can happen,” Chriss explained to CNBC. “It’s that this is a trusted set of merchants, the largest merchant network in the world from PayPal, that are verified, with the largest set of verified consumers in a consumer wallet.”
For the tens of millions of merchants who use PayPal, ACP will bring in 2026 the product catalogs of small businesses as well as marquee retail brands across apparel, fashion, beauty, home improvement, and electronics to ChatGPT commerce, via PayPal’s ACP server – a trusted, scalable, and compliant access layer to a global network of merchants that will not require individual merchant integrations.
The online payment platform will manage merchant routing, payment validation, and orchestration behind the scenes. This integration will make millions of products discoverable and purchasable through ChatGPT.
Follow us on
