SAN FRANCISCO— At a time when interchange fees are very much in the news and the subject of congressional scrutiny, a new report says merchants selling through Shopify will pay OpenAI a 4% fee on sales completed through ChatGPT’s checkout when the e-commerce platform begins enabling sales via artificial intelligence chatbots later this month.
According to The Information, the fee will apply in addition to Shopify’s existing charges, according to the report, a Shopify spokesperson told the publication. Sales completed through chatbot checkouts offered by Google’s AI Mode and Gemini, as well as Microsoft’s Copilot, will not carry additional fees for now, the report said.
Shopify is set to begin making merchants’ products available through AI-powered checkout features today, Jan. 26, under a data-sharing program the company announced late last year, according to The Information.
Merchants Must Opt-In
Under the program, merchants’ products will be available for purchase by default on AI platforms that do not impose additional fees. Merchants must opt in to sell through platforms that do charge extra fees, the report said.
Merchants will be able to select which AI channels they want to use by toggling each platform on or off, The Information reported. Even if a merchant opts out, their products may still appear in AI-generated responses alongside links to the merchant’s own website, unless the merchant contacts the AI companies directly or blocks their listings from being indexed by web crawlers, according to the report.
‘Agentic Storefronts’
Shopify announced in December that its “Agentic Storefronts” initiative would place merchants’ products directly into AI chat interfaces, allowing shoppers to ask questions, compare products and complete purchases within a single conversation.
With Agentic Storefronts, the AI agent routes transactions through Shopify’s checkout system. Shopify has said centralizing those transactions helps reduce the risk of losing visibility inside AI ecosystems it does not control.
The Information noted OpenAI announced in September the launch of “Instant Checkout,” which allows shoppers to complete purchases inside a chat interface rather than being redirected to an external website. OpenAI said the feature would initially support Etsy products in the United States and later expand to include Shopify merchants.
Surge in Transactions
Shopify President Harley Finkelstein said during a November earnings call that AI-driven traffic to Shopify stores has surged, rising sevenfold over the past year, while orders attributed to AI searches increased elevenfold, The Information said.
