Key Points
- PayPal adopts OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol and Instant Checkout for in‑chat payments.
- Integration launches in 2026, allowing PayPal wallet users to pay within ChatGPT.
- Buyers receive PayPal’s protection and dispute‑resolution services during AI‑driven purchases.
- Merchants can list products in ChatGPT categories without building separate integrations.
- A new Agentic Commerce suite offers catalog placement, cross‑app payments, and consumer insights.
- Previous AI partnerships include Perplexity (May) and Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (September).
- PayPal provides enterprise ChatGPT access to its employees and developers.
Partnership Overview
PayPal revealed that it is adopting OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) alongside the company’s Instant Checkout feature to allow users to pay for items directly inside ChatGPT. The integration is slated to begin in 2026 and will let PayPal wallet holders complete transactions without leaving the chat interface.
How Instant Checkout Works
Instant Checkout, launched in September, enables users to confirm order details, shipping information, and payment data within ChatGPT. When a PayPal wallet is used, the transaction benefits from PayPal’s buyer and seller protection and dispute‑resolution services.
Merchant Benefits
Merchants will be able to make their products discoverable on ChatGPT in categories such as apparel, fashion, beauty, home improvement, and electronics. The ACP allows merchants to feature catalogs in AI apps without building separate integrations; PayPal handles routing and payment processing behind the scenes. A new Agentic Commerce suite will also provide merchants with analytics on consumer behavior across AI platforms.
Broader AI Commerce Strategy
PayPal has been positioning itself as a payments partner in various AI‑enabled shopping experiences. Earlier collaborations include a May integration with Perplexity that let users checkout within that AI search tool, and a September adoption of Google’s Agent Payments Protocol for integration with Google products. In addition to the commerce partnership, PayPal is giving its employees enterprise access to ChatGPT and its coding tools like Codex.
Industry Impact
The move reflects a growing trend of embedding commerce directly into conversational AI, aiming to streamline the path from product discovery to payment. By leveraging OpenAI’s protocols, PayPal seeks to capture the large user base that turns to ChatGPT for everyday tasks and product recommendations.
Source: techcrunch.com