OpenAI is wiring a payment network into ChatGPT. Under an expanded partnership announced at the Visa Payments Forum on Wednesday, AI agents inside OpenAI’s products will be able to shop and pay on a user’s behalf at, in principle, any of the more than 175 million merchant locations that accept Visa, once the user grants permission.
The pitch is simple: tell ChatGPT to find wireless headphones under $150 or reorder paper towels, and the agent completes the purchase. Visa supplies the plumbing, tokenised card credentials bound to a specific agent, real-time authorisation, agent identification, and fraud monitoring, the same machinery it runs across more than 300 billion transactions a year.
The user sets the limits: spending caps, approval thresholds, and merchant restrictions, so a human stays in command, at least at first.
OpenAI’s second swing at commerce
This is not OpenAI’s first attempt to turn ChatGPT into a checkout. Its earlier Instant Checkout, launched late last year, let the chatbot find and buy a specific item, but it leaned on a 4 per cent merchant fee that retailers balked at, saw little adoption, and was retired in March.
