PayPal has signed a major agreement with OpenAI to integrate its digital wallet directly into ChatGPT, allowing users to make purchases through the leading consumer AI tool, according to CNBC.
The partnership, finalised over the weekend, will launch next year and connect both sides of PayPal’s ecosystem to ChatGPT.
PayPal users will be able to buy items directly through the platform, while merchants can sell their products there, with inventory listings embedded in ChatGPT, PayPal CEO Alex Chriss told CNBC.
“We’ve got hundreds of millions of loyal PayPal wallet holders who now will be able to click the ‘Buy with PayPal button’ on ChatGPT and have a safe and secure checkout experience,” Chriss said in the interview.
The move positions PayPal as an early player in OpenAI’s push to turn ChatGPT into an e-commerce hub. With more than 700 million weekly users, the platform aims to act like a virtual personal shopper, helping users find and purchase products through AI.
The deal follows recent integrations with Shopify, Etsy, and Walmart, as OpenAI expands its commercial partnerships.
Following CNBC’s report, PayPal confirmed the collaboration in a press release issued alongside its third-quarter earnings. The company said it will oversee merchant routing, payment validation, and other backend processing tasks for sellers on ChatGPT, meaning individual merchants won’t need direct contracts with OpenAI.
“It’s a whole new paradigm for shopping,” Chriss said to CNBC. “It’s hard to imagine that agentic commerce isn’t going to be a big part of the future.”
Chriss added that that the integration leverages PayPal’s extensive verification systems for both consumers and merchants, minimising fraud risks.
Users will be able to fund purchases using linked bank accounts, credit cards, or PayPal balances, with access to protections such as package tracking and dispute resolution.
“It’s not just that a transaction can happen,” Chriss said. “It’s that this is a trusted set of merchants, the largest merchant network in the world from PayPal, that are verified, with the largest set of verified consumers in a consumer wallet.”
Additionally, PayPal announced it will broaden its use of OpenAI’s enterprise AI products internally to accelerate product development and innovation cycles.
