ChatGPT can now buy from your business directly. Here's how it works and what you need to do.

On February 16, 2026, OpenAI launched the Agentic Commerce Protocol — ACP for short. They built it with Stripe. And it changes everything about how 900 million people can buy from your business.

Here's what happened: ChatGPT users can now find a product or service, see the price, and complete the purchase — all without leaving the chat. No website visit. No form. No cart. The customer says what they need, ChatGPT finds a business that offers it, and the transaction happens right there in the conversation.

What ACP is and how it works

ACP is an open-source protocol. Apache 2.0 license, which means anyone can use it, build on it, or modify it. OpenAI and Stripe designed it together so that AI agents — ChatGPT being the biggest — can discover merchants, check product or service availability, and complete a purchase on the customer's behalf.

The technical side: ACP can be implemented as a standard REST API or as an MCP server. If you're a developer, that means you've got flexibility in how you connect. If you're not a developer, that's what people like us handle for you.

The payment processing runs through Stripe — the same payment infrastructure that powers millions of businesses already. If you already use Stripe, the integration is even smoother.

The numbers that matter

ChatGPT has 900 million weekly active users. That's not monthly. That's weekly. And OpenAI reports 50 million shopping queries per day across ChatGPT. Fifty million times a day, someone is asking ChatGPT to help them find or buy something.

If your business isn't in ACP, none of those 50 million daily queries can reach you. Your competitor who is in ACP? They're getting found. That's the math.

Who's in it right now

Etsy was first. They were the launch partner and their merchants were available in ChatGPT checkout on day one. Shopify merchants are being onboarded now — if you're on Shopify, you can apply at chatgpt.com/merchants to get into the program.

One important note: Amazon is NOT in ACP. They blocked OpenAI's crawlers and updated their legal terms to prevent integration. Amazon is building their own closed system with Rufus and Alexa+. So if your business depends on Amazon, ACP doesn't help you there. But if you sell anywhere else — your own website, Shopify, or direct — ACP is wide open.

What it costs

OpenAI charges a 4% transaction fee on purchases made through ChatGPT checkout. That's on top of your standard Stripe processing fees. So you're looking at roughly 6.9% total on a ChatGPT transaction (4% to OpenAI plus ~2.9% to Stripe).

Is that expensive? Compared to what? If you're paying for Google Ads to drive traffic, your cost per acquisition might be $30 or $50 or $100 per customer. A 4% fee on a completed sale — where ChatGPT did all the work of finding the customer and closing the transaction — could be a bargain depending on your margins.

You have to run the numbers for your business. But don't dismiss it because of the fee without comparing it to what you're already spending to acquire customers.

What small businesses can do right now

If you're on Shopify: Apply at chatgpt.com/merchants. Shopify is actively onboarding merchants into the ACP system. The earlier you apply, the earlier you're in.

If you're not on Shopify: You can still integrate. ACP is open source and any business can build a connection. You need structured product or service data, a Stripe account, and either a REST API endpoint or an MCP server that ChatGPT agents can query. That's exactly what we build for clients.

Structured data matters more than ever. AI agents need clean, machine-readable information about what you sell, where you sell it, how much it costs, and whether it's available. If your product or service information is buried in paragraphs of text on a website, ChatGPT can't work with it efficiently. Structured data — schema markup, product feeds, clear API responses — is what AI agents consume.

Response time and accuracy matter. When a ChatGPT agent queries your business, it expects fast, accurate responses. If your data is stale or your endpoint is slow, the agent moves on to the next merchant. This is the same dynamic as Google UCP — speed and data quality are the new competitive advantages.

This is the same playbook as Google UCP

If you've read our breakdown of Google's Universal Commerce Protocol, the pattern should look familiar. Open protocol. Structured data. API integration. First movers get established before the crowd shows up.

We integrated a Nebraska trash hauler into Google UCP on launch day. We're taking the same approach with ACP — getting clients in now, while the window is open and the competition is still figuring out what these letters stand for.

The businesses that are in both UCP and ACP are discoverable by AI agents across Google and ChatGPT. That covers a huge portion of where people are already going to search, shop, and buy. Add Microsoft Copilot Checkout into the mix and you're visible across practically every major AI platform.

Read more about Google UCP or see how we help businesses get into these systems on our services page.