PayPal has announced a major expansion into AI-powered commerce, revealing plans to enable users to make purchases directly within OpenAI’s ChatGPT starting in 2026. The move centers on PayPal’s adoption of OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), an open-source framework that allows merchants to make their products discoverable and purchasable within AI applications. This integration will allow users to transition seamlessly from chatting with AI agents to completing purchases—all without leaving the ChatGPT interface. The partnership builds on OpenAI’s Instant Checkout feature, launched in September, which lets users confirm orders, shipping details, and payment information within ChatGPT. With PayPal’s integration, users will be able to pay using their PayPal wallets, leveraging familiar payment methods and access to buyer protection, dispute resolution, and fraud safeguards. PayPal will also provide a dedicated payments API to handle card transactions directly within the AI environment, ensuring secure and streamlined checkout experiences. Merchants using PayPal’s platform will automatically have their products surfaced in ChatGPT, starting with categories like apparel, fashion, beauty, home improvement, and electronics. Crucially, no additional integration work is required from merchants—their products will be routed and processed behind the scenes by PayPal, simplifying the onboarding process. This will allow businesses to reach consumers in a new, AI-driven shopping context without building custom systems. In addition to the core payment integration, PayPal is launching an agentic commerce suite for merchants. This toolset will let businesses display their catalogs in AI apps, accept payments across multiple AI platforms, and gain insights into customer behavior, enabling more data-driven decision-making. The suite is designed to help companies adapt to the shift toward AI-mediated shopping, where users increasingly rely on AI agents to research, compare, and buy products. This move is part of PayPal’s broader strategy to position itself as a key payments infrastructure provider within the growing AI economy. The company has already partnered with Perplexity to enable checkout in its AI search engine and adopted Google’s Agent Payments Protocol to integrate with Google’s ecosystem. These efforts signal a clear push to become embedded in the next generation of digital commerce, where AI agents act as personal shoppers. PayPal is also deepening its internal use of OpenAI’s technology. The company is giving enterprise access to ChatGPT for all employees and allowing its engineering teams to use OpenAI’s coding tools, including Codex, to improve product development and efficiency. Alex Chriss, PayPal’s president and CEO, emphasized the alignment between the two companies’ user bases: “Hundreds of millions of people turn to ChatGPT each week for help with everyday tasks, including finding products they love, and over 400 million use PayPal to shop.” He added that the partnership will enable “payments and commerce experiences that help people go from chat to checkout in just a few taps.” The integration could significantly enhance the functionality of OpenAI’s emerging ecosystem, including its Atlas browser and the rumored consumer hardware device being developed with designer Jony Ive. By turning AI agents into personal shopping assistants, OpenAI could unlock new revenue opportunities while improving user engagement. While the full rollout is set for 2026, the announcement marks a pivotal moment in the convergence of AI and commerce. As consumers increasingly rely on AI for decision-making, companies like PayPal are positioning themselves at the intersection of conversation and transaction—ushering in a new era of seamless, intelligent shopping.