# Shop ‘Til You Drop: ChatGPT Search Gets a Shopping Upgrade

## Shop ‘Til You Drop: ChatGPT Search Gets a Shopping Upgrade

OpenAI is beefing up ChatGPT’s search capabilities, turning the popular chatbot into a more potent shopping companion. Announced on Monday, the update aims to provide users with a streamlined and personalized online shopping experience, directly within the ChatGPT interface.

When users search for products, ChatGPT will now offer targeted recommendations, complete with images, reviews, and direct links to purchase pages. OpenAI emphasizes the ability to pose hyper-specific questions in natural language, promising tailored results for each user. The initial rollout will focus on categories like fashion, beauty, home goods, and electronics.

This new feature is available today in GPT-4o, the default AI model, for all ChatGPT users, including Pro, Plus, Free, and even those logged out.

This move is a clear signal that OpenAI is aiming to challenge Google’s dominance in the search market by offering a more personalized and potentially less ad-driven approach to finding products and information. Online shopping remains a crucial revenue stream for Google, but the heavy reliance on advertising has arguably impacted the quality of its search results over time.

According to OpenAI, ChatGPT search is rapidly gaining traction, with users conducting over a billion web searches within the chatbot just last week.

Interestingly, OpenAI is explicitly stating that the shopping results are determined independently, based on structured metadata from third-party sources like pricing, product descriptions, and reviews. The company will not receive any commission or affiliate fees from purchases made through ChatGPT search, at least for now.

However, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has hinted at a potential shift in strategy, suggesting he’s open to “tasteful” advertising models in the future, where OpenAI might earn affiliate fees without prioritizing ad placement in search results.

Looking ahead, OpenAI plans to integrate its “memory” feature with the shopping experience for Pro and Plus subscribers. This means ChatGPT will leverage past conversations to generate even more personalized product recommendations, further enhancing the shopping experience. The company has already rolled out memory-enhanced web searches more broadly. However, these memory features will not be available in the EU, the U.K., Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein due to regulatory restrictions.

In addition to shopping enhancements, ChatGPT search now displays trending searches as users type, mirroring Google Search’s autocomplete functionality. Furthermore, ChatGPT search has expanded to WhatsApp, allowing users to access up-to-date information directly via messaging.

Previously, OpenAI experimented with shopping features through its AI “agent” platform, Operator. While Operator offered a deep dive into web pages to find relevant products, it was a slower process. This new ChatGPT search with shopping promises a more immediate and user-friendly experience, all while retaining the power of natural language queries.

With these updates, OpenAI is solidifying ChatGPT’s position as a multifaceted tool, going beyond simple text generation to offer a more comprehensive and engaging user experience. Whether this translates to a genuine challenge to Google’s search empire remains to be seen, but the future of online shopping may very well be shaped by these evolving AI capabilities.