OpenAI has begun rolling out shopping search features directly into ChatGPT Search across fashion, beauty, home goods, and electronics categories. These are not ads or affiliate-driven, but they are powered by structured data from third-party sources. In fact, you can sign up to have your products included over here.
OpenAI also announced improved citations, WhatsApp integration and trending and autocomplete.
Here is what the interface looks like, where you can see brands like Walmart and some smaller named retailers, listed as buying options:
Here is a video of it in action:
Shopping
We’re experimenting with making shopping simpler and faster to find, compare, and buy products in ChatGPT.
✅ Improved product results
✅ Visual product details, pricing, and reviews
✅ Direct links to buyProduct results are chosen independently and are not ads.… pic.twitter.com/PkZwsTxJUj
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) April 28, 2025
Via Wired, who interviewed Adam Fry, the ChatGPT search product lead at OpenAI:
“It’s not looking for specific signals that are in some algorithm,” says Fry. According to him, this will be a shopping experience that’s more personalized and conversational, rather than keyword-focused. “It’s trying to understand how people are reviewing this, how people are talking about this, what the pros and cons are,” says Fry. If you say that you prefer only buying black clothes from a specific retailer, then ChatGPT will supposedly store that information in its memory the next time you ask for advice about what shirt to buy, giving you recommendations that align with your tastes.
The reviews that ChatGPT features for products will pull from a blend of online sources, including editorial publishers like WIRED as well as user-generated forums like Reddit. Fry says that users can tell ChatGPT which types of reviews to prioritize when curating a list of recommended products.
OpenAI didn’t rule out doing some affiliate model in the future but right now, OpenAI is not worried about that.
Again, if you want to get your products in here, sign up over here.
OpenAI says that these are organic recommendations rather than paid ones, but I can’t imagine that state of affairs will hold
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— Casey Newton (@caseynewton.bsky.social) April 28, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Here are the improved citations:
ChatGPT can now include multiple citations for a given response, allowing you to learn more or verify information across more sources. They have also added a new ‘highlight’ UI to more clearly show which part of the answer the citation refers to.
Here is what it looks like:
Trending and Autocomplete:
Forum discussion at Bluesky.
