How ACP Works

ACP operates on dual-tracks: Product Discovery and Agentic Checkout. Together, they create an uninterrupted, end-to-end commerce experience inside ChatGPT.

Product Discovery

As a Merchant, you provide a structured Product Feed to OpenAI. This feed contains product data that’s indexed, enriched with AI context, and made discoverable when users express relevant intent in conversation.

For example:

A user asks, “Show me stylish suitcases under $500”. ChatGPT surfaces product cards directly from merchant feeds that meet the criteria — a native, multi-merchant product listing page. Each card includes price, images, and a short description, drawn from the feed, alongside optional conversational recommendations (e.g., “This one is popular among frequent travelers.”)

This makes ChatGPT act as both salesperson and curator, drawing from verified merchant data rather than simply scraping web results.

Agentic Checkout

Once a user clicks Buy, ChatGPT engages the Agentic Checkout API, which performs the following steps:

1. Creates a checkout session through the merchant’s API.
2. Presents a payment interface within ChatGPT (Apple Pay, Google Pay, or major card brands).
3. Submits the order securely on the user’s behalf.
4. Provides confirmation and post-purchase details, all within the same chat thread.

The result: no redirects, no page loads, no broken purchase flow just a natural, assisted checkout that feels conversational but performs as securely as a traditional storefront.