OpenAI’s push into commerce continues but the approaches and solutions remain confusing for brands and retailers. This past week I was at Shoptalk and met with over 20 brands and retailers and they fell into these categories:

  • Worried/nervous about the fact that shoppers are rapidly moving to LLMs to start shopping journeys but not sure what to do
  • Have taken the first step of GEO but very disappointed with unpredictability of results and the quick about face OpenAI made in backing out of Instant Checkout
  • Feeling good about GEO but want more control on engagement and conversations with consumers and ultimately conversions

Perhaps in a response to the above, OpenAI made a somewhat confusing announcement about their “new” Product Discovery capabilities. If you look beyond the cool video and actually read through the entire article as well as other posts from media and other stakeholders (posted below), the following is the TL;DR version of all of that:

  • ChatGPT’s Product Discovery feature via ACP as well as a brand/retailer’s GEO only address the very start of a consumer journey. For brands you will get listed with many competing brands and questions about your products will be answered using content from Reddit, Youtube and elsewhere (good and bad). Consumers cannot do instant checkout here as OpenAI has clearly stated. Earlier attempts to support instant checkout performed poorly (Walmart saw that such checkouts produced only 1/3rd of the conversions compared to such searches on their site)
  • ChatGPT’s Apps are where purchase decisions will be made. Walmart after seeing disappointing results from ACP moved to a ChatGPT app incorporating their onsite Chatbot “Sparky”‘s capabilities: the results were 2x new customers acquired compared to search and users spending 35% more per order likely due to the highly engaging, immersive and trusted environment within the app. There are now over 250 apps in ChatGPT so its a model that’s gaining traction for deeper brand engagement within ChatGPT. The rich user experience lends itself to a “store-like” experience
  • Checkout is up to the brand/retailer but it will only happen in these apps – some will direct to a local store, some to a DTC site, some to a retailer site and some (over time) to an agentic checkout via ACP

The attached graphic lays it out. DaVinci Commerce Agentic BrandStore is automating the generation of rich, experience focused ChatGPT storefront apps enabling a rich, conversational consumer experience and trusted brand/retailer environment where shopping decisions will be made with the brand/retailer deciding the best route to checkout.