Some Shopify merchants can now directly advertise in the world’s most popular AI chatbot.
The news: US AI giant OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Ads inside Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify’s App Store. The free-to-install integration allows Shopify merchants to sync their storefronts to ChatGPT, set ad campaigns within a budget, and feature their products in marked ads inside the chatbot.
At the moment, ChatGPT Ads is only available for Shopify merchants in the United States. According to OpenAI, the app will be available in international markets where ChatGPT Ads are available starting September 23. BetaKit has reached out to OpenAI to confirm if this includes Canada.
From the source: ChatGPT leads the AI assistant market, and became the fastest mobile app to reach one billion monthly active users this past May, according to a June report from analytics firm Sensor Tower. While the report also says ChatGPT’s market share dipped below 50 percent for the first time earlier this year, it’s still a massive market for Shopify merchants to advertise to.
The context: Shopify is OpenAI’s first commerce partner, according to Shopify president Harley Finkelstein. Outside of advertising, Shopify has been working on allowing merchants to sell their products across popular AI chatbots since last year, and much of its product updates since then have been focused on bolstering the platform’s agentic commerce capabilities. Shopify has also struck similar partnerships with Google and Microsoft to increase merchant discoverability in their chatbots.
Final thought: Alongside the Shopify app release, OpenAI introduced sponsored agents, which let users start a conversation with a business-sponsored agent after clicking an ad in ChatGPT, and AI-powered marketing tools to ChatGPT Ads. These features are early indications of how large language models are (potentially dramatically) changing online shopping and e-commerce, and by getting in early, Shopify appears to be embracing that change.
Disclosure: BetaKit majority owner Good Future is the family office of two former Shopify leaders, Arati Sharma and Satish Kanwar.
Feature image courtesy Burst. Photo by Avelino Calvary Martinez.