Can ChatGPT's Shopify deal hurt Google's search business?

A year after OpenAl launched ChatGPT, on the company's developer community, one member broached: “Looking for a shopify [sic] solution which can index product data from the store and recommend users with products based on user message.”

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In response, another one replied: “You could build a dynamic web-scraper, using Selenium and beautiful soup [sic], to extract the html [sic] from web pages and then implement functionality to instruct the API to extract certain elements, like prices.” After roughly two years later, OpenAl took a different, but easy path to make the integration.

On April 29, the Microsoftand Softbank-backed Al startup announced it is experimenting with a shopping feature that will visually display product details and pricing to users based on the context of their interaction with the bot. While the Sam Altman-led company did not reveal how the back-end of this feature works or whether it has formally tied up with online commerce platform Shopify to make this happen, some developers spotted a new code in ChatGPT's public web bundle a few days earlier that revealed a Shopify checkout link, along with fields for shopping, price, product ratings and purchasing. Taking the cue for Mr. Lutke’s post, this integration between Shopify and ChatGPT marks a turning point in the evolution of online commerce that could dramatically shift how consumers discover and purchase products. If the partnership unfolds as planned, it will usher in a paradigm shift in shopping, moving away from conventional browser-based searches and embracing a conversational, Al-driven shopping environment.