Deep|SHOP: Quantifying the Impact of Agentic Commerce
OpenAI, Gemini, AMZN Rufus, SHOP Catalog, Alibaba
We first mentioned in September that Agentic Commerce could have a significant impact on Shopify, potentially contributing 10% GMV growth in the future.
Since then, we’ve seen increasing discussions about how Agentic Commerce will impact Shopify.
Through this report, we aim to provide a detailed analysis of Agentic Commerce’s impact on Shopify, including what OpenAI and Gemini will bring to Shopify, and how Shopify is partnering with these LLM platforms.
Finally, we’ll also cover how Amazon Rufus and Alibaba are participating in Agentic Commerce.
This report includes extensive sampling research to help us quantify the actual impact of Agentic Commerce on Shopify’s revenue.
Special note: We currently don’t have the capability to make specific judgments about Shopify’s Q3 FY2025 performance, and this is our first deep dive into Shopify. Therefore, the research primarily focuses on what Agentic Commerce will bring to Shopify in 2026-2027.
Agentic Commerce Business Models
Current Agentic Commerce Business Models
OpenAI’s AI commerce model resembles a 3P marketplace model
The platform doesn’t take responsibility for transactions, merchants retain customer data, making them more willing to partner with OpenAI and facilitating international expansion.
For e-commerce scenarios, they’ve introduced the ACP protocol, which is compatible with any payment processor (Stripe, PayPal, etc.). OpenAI only delegates one-time, restricted payment credentials to merchants or their designated PSPs. Transactions and funds are still processed by merchants/PSPs; OpenAI is not the merchant of record.
In this process, ChatGPT doesn’t control any customer relationships and isn’t responsible for refunds, settlements, or other processes.
Platform-type merchants like Etsy retain their existing risk control, reconciliation, refund, and settlement systems, which greatly accelerates ecosystem adoption.
For Shopify merchants, they still retain user data and transaction information.
Perplexity purchases on behalf of customers
They bear greater responsibility for consumer transactions, merchants don’t control consumer data, and merchant expansion costs are higher.
Users complete search, selection, and payment on Perplexity; Stripe (via Link) handles payment; Perplexity receives the funds; Perplexity places the order with Walmart, and Walmart ships; the user’s bill shows “Perplexity AI,” not Walmart.
The platform controls payment (Stripe Link integration is within Perplexity’s domain)
The platform controls user experience (including UI, product presentation, payment, after-sales, refund processes)
The platform controls data (user purchase data, traffic, CRM all stay with Perplexity)
The platform controls unified fulfillment interface (merchants can’t directly contact customers)
For newly onboarded merchants, the platform needs to handle legal, tax, product information integration, settlement, compliance, currency exchange, etc. For global business, marginal costs actually increase. Merchant onboarding costs are extremely high, making it difficult to quickly scale to thousands of small sellers.
OpenAI Agentic Commerce Progress
OpenAI is currently integrating with Shopify and may complete non-redirect shopping before Black Friday this year
After integrating with Catalog, OpenAI can access Shop data in real-time, obtaining real-time product pricing and user reviews for better shopping experiences.
For Shopify merchants, all product information is automatically integrated into ChatGPT unless they actively opt out. For non-Shopify independent site merchants, they may need to integrate with ChatGPT’s API themselves in the future. The API updates every 15 minutes. Integrating with different shopping models requires custom interfaces, making promotion much more difficult and slower, incentivizing more merchants to migrate to Shopify.
Shopify’s account system is now integrated with ChatGPT. Users don’t need to log into Shop Pay to use pre-stored bank card information and addresses to purchase from various independent sites.
Beyond Shopify, OpenAI is also integrating with third-party e-commerce platforms like Walmart
In the future, membership systems will be connected, allowing data including consumer order history to be transmitted back to improve conversion rates.
Walmart provides data to ChatGPT via API. Currently, Walmart’s partnership with ChatGPT is limited to Walmart US (excluding Sam’s Club and Walmart International). Currently, online and offline inventory except fresh produce has been integrated with ChatGPT. Fresh produce accounts for approximately 20% of Walmart’s GMV.
After users link their ChatGPT account with their Walmart account, they can choose to sync order history. ChatGPT recommends products based on order history.
Walmart’s advantages lie in supply chain, physical stores, and logistics delivery. AI search considers shopping immediacy and reliability factors, helping Walmart maintain its advantage in the Agentic Comerce era.
