In November 2025, to seize the holiday shopping season traffic, OpenAI officially launched a free shopping search feature optimized based on the GPT-5-Thinking-mini model. Available to all ChatGPT users, both free and paid, the feature can be used “nearly without restrictions” before the holidays, aiming to help consumers efficiently complete holiday purchases through personalized recommendations.
Unlike the regular text interaction users are accustomed to, this shopping search feature offers an entirely new interactive experience. Users can activate the feature via the dedicated “Shopping Research” button in the chat interface and flexibly describe their needs in natural language, such as “Find a small sofa for a studio apartment” or “Choose a gift for my 4-year-old niece who loves art.” Instead of generating an immediate text response, the AI proactively solicits more key information through a question-and-answer format, such as budget range, color preferences, and product dimensions, to ensure accurate understanding of user needs.
In the process of gathering information from the web, the feature gradually recommends 10 to 15 products. Users can click “More like this” or “Not interested” during the recommendation process to real-time optimize the final list, making the results more in line with their expectations. The feature performs exceptionally well in detail-rich categories such as electronics, beauty products, home goods, kitchenware, and outdoor gear. However, OpenAI admits its limitations: it may contain errors in product details like prices and inventory, and it is difficult to 100% identify objective and authentic user reviews. Therefore, users are advised to verify key information through merchants’ official websites. In addition, for simple price inquiries, the regular ChatGPT responds more quickly. Notably, the feature does not prioritize specific websites when recommending products and will not share users’ chat records with retailers, ensuring neutrality and privacy security.
Strategic Layout: Paving the Way for Future Commercialization
The launch of this feature is a crucial layout for OpenAI in the competitive AI market, directly targeting competitors like Perplexity AI to compete for user entry points in the shopping scenario. Recently, OpenAI has intensively rolled out a series of new functions, including group chat, a free version of ChatGPT for K-12 teachers in the United States, and a web browser with built-in ChatGPT, highlighting its urgent need to expand application scenarios and user base.
While this shopping search feature opens up room for commercial imagination, OpenAI clearly states that it will not profit from it in the short term. Independent of the in-chat instant checkout feature developed in collaboration with Stripe (currently only available to some U.S. users of Etsy and Shopify merchants), the core goal at present is to consolidate the user base and cultivate usage habits by providing high-value free services.
Analysis suggests that OpenAI’s move aims to occupy a key position in the front end of the consumer decision-making chain—the research and search phase—laying the foundation for future business models. This piece of latest AI news also indicates that OpenAI may realize monetization in the future by launching more advanced paid shopping features or integrating seamless purchasing experiences, further expanding the commercial value of AI technology in the consumer scenario.
