ChatGPT Instacart Integration Brings AI Grocery Shopping With Instant Checkout Feature

You can buy your Instacart groceries without leaving ChatGPT | TechCrunch

OpenAI and Instacart are launching a grocery shopping experience inside of ChatGPT, allowing customers to brainstorm meal ideas, make a grocery list, and check out, all without leaving the chat interface. This builds upon an existing partnership between OpenAI and Instacart; more than two years ago, Instacart launched an in-app AI search tool powered by ChatGPT, which helps shoppers ask questions about what to make for dinner or how to accommodate dietary restrictions. The relationship between OpenAI and Instacart seems to have only deepened after former Instacart CEO Fidji Simo -- who was already an OpenAI board member -- joined the company as the CEO of Applications in May. Agentic commerce -- the use of AI tools to do shopping research and make purchases on a user's behalf -- is a current priority for OpenAI. Its most recent dev day focused on its plan to build apps into ChatGPT. In an early preview for developers, ChatGPT launched integrations with apps like Booking.com, Canva, Coursera, Expedia, Figma, Spotify, and Zillow; since then, OpenAI has announced further partnerships with Target, Intuit, and others. Leading up to this year's holiday shopping season, both OpenAI and Perplexity announced in-app features that help users make decisions about what products to buy -- so, you could ask ChatGPT to help you find the best deal on a gaming laptop that matches your specific criteria. Adobe predicted that AI-assisted online shopping will grow by 520% this holiday season. Despite ChatGPT's immense popularity, OpenAI is not making a profit, and it may not for another several years -- if it ever does. Its products are so resource-intensive that even subscription costs don't account for how much compute power the company uses to make its product work. These agentic commerce tools could give OpenAI another way of making money, since it'll take an undisclosed "small fee" when it helps merchants make a sale. But it would take a whole lot of ChatGPT-based shopping for these fees to make a dent in OpenAI's debt.

With Instacart Integration, ChatGPT Can Be Your Personal Shopper

Ever use an AI chatbot to come up with recipe ideas or meal inspiration? Now, ChatGPT will allow you to buy items from your shopping list without leaving the app. Online grocery company Instacart is the latest third-party service to be integrated into ChatGPT. The new tools will allow you to build a shopping list, pick groceries, decide where you want to buy from, tell ChatGPT how you want it to be delivered, decide on extras like a tip, and even pay without leaving OpenAI's chatbot. To use the app within ChatGPT, write a prompt that speaks to Instacart. An example given by OpenAI shows a user asking, "Instacart, can you give me all the ingredients needed to make an apple crisp?" The chatbot then compiles all the items from a local retailer. You can add more or check out. ChatGPT will request your address, provide options for delivery, and summarize all the fees. Previous payment methods will appear, or you can add a new one. Nick Turley, head of ChatGPT, says the partnership is "another step toward bringing our vision to life -- where AI delivers helpful suggestions and connects directly to real-world services, saving people time and effort in their everyday lives." OpenAI says Instacart is the first retailer to offer Instant Checkout, an OpenAI feature that lets retailers build ChatGPT shopping experiences. However, we've seen other services launch their own solutions in ChatGPT, including Etsy, Shopify, and Target. OpenAI has been criticized in recent days for its implementation of apps in ChatGPT. One ChatGPT Plus subscriber argued that the Target integration appeared to be an ad. Chief Research Officer Mark Chen replied to say that OpenAI had fallen short in its implementation. "We've turned off this kind of suggestion while we improve the model's precision," he tweeted. "We're also looking at better controls so you can dial this down or off if you don't find it helpful." Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Instacart brings instant checkout to ChatGPT

A single prompt can now build your cart, process payment, and summon a delivery * Instacart now offers full shopping and Instant Checkout directly inside ChatGPT * The integration lets users go from meal ideas to paid, scheduled grocery delivery without leaving the chat * Instacart is positioning the feature as the start of a larger shift toward AI-powered, conversational commerce Instacart has launched the first fully embedded grocery‑shopping app inside ChatGPT. You can use the new Instant Checkout system to find items, put together a cart, and pay for everything without ever leaving the chat window. It's the first time any retailer in ChatGPT's growing app ecosystem has stitched together the entire purchase flow end‑to‑end, and it positions Instacart as the earliest mover in what's shaping up to be AI‑powered commerce's next phase. The rollout means that ChatGPT is no longer just suggesting meals or surfacing recipe ideas. The AI chatbot can execute the entire grocery run. A prompt as simple as "Instacart, help me make meatloaf" will start the process. You just have to sign into your Instacart account, and the app pulls up inventory from nearby stores and makes suggestions for your shopping. Then you pay through ChatGPT using Stripe. Delivery then proceeds through Instacart as normal. "With the Instacart app directly in ChatGPT, users can go from meal planning to checkout in a single, seamless conversation," OpenAI's head of ChatGPT, Nick Turley, said in a statement. "It's another step toward bringing our vision to life -- where AI delivers helpful suggestions and connects directly to real-world services, saving people time and effort in their everyday lives." Instant Checkout currently works on desktop and mobile web, with iOS and Android support arriving soon. Once enabled, the user stays inside the chat, selects items tailored to local availability, and checks out with a familiar, secure credit‑card interface. Everything is powered behind the scenes by the Agentic Commerce Protocol that OpenAI developed to let apps inside ChatGPT perform transactions. ChatGPT shopping Grocery shopping is one of the most universal errands in modern life, equal parts chore and necessity. Embedding that experience inside an AI chatbot could shift the way people think about planning, buying, and making meals. If ChatGPT already helps someone brainstorm weekly dinners, it now also removes the moment where intention and follow‑through often break down. Instacart's catalog includes a couple of billion items with its inventory updating constantly. These complexities are exactly why grocery shopping has been such a difficult category for AI agents like ChatGPT to crack. But, Instacart is relying on a decade of fulfillment data and its delivery logistics to make the difference. A conversational shopping assistant is only as good as the data beneath it. If a model recommends a brand that's not actually in stock, or offers the wrong size, or ignores a user's preference for gluten‑free or organic products, that trust evaporates. Instacart's pitch is that its system understands those nuances and that ChatGPT can supply the conversational glue to get a successful order placed. It may start with a single recipe and a lazy evening where ChatGPT picks the ingredients and handles the logistics. But if the convenience doesn't have too many bumps on the road to a meal, people could start thinking of ChatGPT as their personal shopper intermediary with the actual Instacart shopper picking up their groceries. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button! And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.

You can now buy groceries in ChatGPT

OpenAI and Instacart are bringing grocery shopping to ChatGPT. The two companies announced Monday that the Instacart app is being directly integrated into ChatGPT, meaning you can browse for groceries and check out, all within the popular chatbot. The aim is that users can ask ChatGPT for meal ideas or help with a recipe, then boom: buy everything they need from Instacart. "With the Instacart app directly in ChatGPT, users can go from meal planning to checkout in a single, seamless conversation," said Nick Turley, head of ChatGPT, in a statement. "It's another step toward bringing our vision to life -- where AI delivers helpful suggestions and connects directly to real-world services, saving people time and effort in their everyday lives." Curious culinary customers should, however, keep in mind that AI tools do have a habit of being confidently wrong -- meaning the recipes might not always be perfect. Reviews of ChatGPT-generated recipes online, for instance, are a mixed bag -- but mostly middling. Also worth noting: the AI model can hallucinate when it comes to recipes, and we're not just talking about the infamous "glue on pizza" bit made up by Google's AI overviews in 2024. As recently as August 2025, one person was hospitalized after reportedly following ChatGPT dietary advice that suggested replacing table salt with sodium bromide, which is toxic for human consumption. So if any user wants to take advantage of recipe ingredients via the OpenAI-Instacart partnership this holiday season, they would be well-advised to make like Santa Claus -- and check their list at least twice.

You can use Instacart on ChatGPT to make a viral TikTok recipe, but I wouldn't recommend it

Instacart just became the first company to offer an end-to-end integrated shopping experience with OpenAI's ChatGPT. It's yet another signal that AI is about to upend the way we shop -- and, maybe, the way we cook. The new partnership was announced by Instacart and OpenAI on December 8. To use the interface, ChatGPT users need to make an Instacart account and then surface Instacart within their chat thread using a prompt like, "Instacart, help me shop for apple pie ingredients." From there, they can discuss recipes, ingredient swaps, and their preferred store with ChatGPT, which will help them order all of the items they need from Instacart without ever changing tabs or leaving the chat. This partnership is a significant milestone in the race among tech companies to make AI an integral part of the shopping experience. Amazon, for example, now offers a suite of AI tools to help shoppers make decisions and point them toward future purchases. According to Adobe Digital Insights' 2025 report on holiday season shopping, the company saw the first material surge in AI-directed traffic (users following links recommended by chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Gemini) to U.S. retail sites in 2024. This year, it expects AI traffic to rise by 520%. In all, Adobe found that over a third of shoppers in the U.S. have used AI to help with online shopping -- and that number is bound to keep growing.

OpenAI and Instacart launch grocery shopping inside ChatGPT

OpenAI and Instacart introduced a grocery shopping experience within ChatGPT, enabling customers to generate meal ideas, create grocery lists, and complete purchases without exiting the chat interface. This initiative builds on an existing collaboration between the two companies. More than two years ago, Instacart launched an in-app AI search tool, powered by ChatGPT, that assists shoppers with meal preparation inquiries and dietary restrictions. The relationship between OpenAI and Instacart has intensified since former Instacart CEO Fidji Simo, an OpenAI board member, became CEO of Applications at the company in May. OpenAI prioritizes agentic commerce, which involves AI tools conducting shopping research and making purchases for users. Its most recent developer event highlighted plans to integrate applications into ChatGPT. During an early developer preview, ChatGPT launched integrations with Booking.com, Canva, Coursera, Expedia, Figma, Spotify, and Zillow. OpenAI has since announced additional partnerships with Target, Intuit, and other companies. Prior to this year's holiday shopping season, OpenAI and Perplexity announced in-app features designed to assist users with product purchasing decisions. Users can, for instance, ask ChatGPT to identify optimal deals for specific gaming laptop criteria. Adobe projected a 520% increase in AI-assisted online shopping during the current holiday season. Despite ChatGPT's widespread adoption, OpenAI is not currently profitable and may remain so for several years. The resource-intensive nature of its products means that subscription revenues do not cover the computational power required to operate them. Agentic commerce tools could offer OpenAI an alternative revenue stream, as it will collect an undisclosed "small fee" on merchant sales facilitated through the platform. However, the volume of ChatGPT-based shopping required for these fees to significantly impact OpenAI's financial position remains substantial.

Instacart Integrates Grocery Platform With ChatGPT | PYMNTS.com

By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. This integration, announced Monday (Dec. 8), will also see Instacart offer an embedded shopping and checkout offering within ChatGPT conversations, and is designed to make it easier for users to get meal ideas and have the necessary products delivered to their door. "Instacart and ChatGPT are redefining what's possible in AI-powered shopping," Anirban Kundu, Instacart's chief technology officer, said in a news release. "Built on Agentic Commerce Protocol, this experience brings intelligent, real-time support to one of the most essential parts of daily life: getting groceries to feed your family. Together, we're creating a seamless and secure way for people to turn simple conversations into real-world action -- helping customers go from inspiration to a full cart delivered from the store to their door with ease." According to the release, the new integration is now available on desktop and mobile web. The Instacart ChatGPT app is available on iOS and Android, with Instant Checkout coming to these native platforms in the weeks ahead. ChatGPT, the companies said, can "surface" the Instacart ChatGPT app when a user asks for it by initiating a prompt with Instacart. After opening the app and signing in, users can get help finding the items they need from local retailers, and pay for their purchases directly in the Instacart app right in ChatGPT with Instant Checkout, without having to switch tabs. From there, products will be shopped and delivered via Instacart's platform, the release added. The new integration comes as consumers are growing increasingly comfortable using generative artificial intelligence to help guide retail purchases. The PYMNTS Intelligence report "Black Friday Shopping Trends Expose Shift to Budget-Driven Buying" found that half of the surveyed consumers had turned to generative AI at least once for their Black Friday purchases this year. This survey also found that shoppers most commonly used artificial intelligence assistants to seek out discount codes or deals (42%), keep track of prices or monitor price reductions (35%), research and compare product options (31%) come up with gift ideas (30%) and understand product specifications or features (28%). "Conversational AI, in the form of prompt-based AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, is becoming a mainstream shopping concierge," the report said. The PYMNTS research is in keeping with recent findings from Visa which showed that 47% of Americans were using AI tools to assist them with this year's holiday shopping.

ChatGPT as a grocery store: From recipe to goods delivery, OpenAI's chatbot is evolving

ChatGPT evolves from recipe helper to full grocery buying assistant instantly ChatGPT is stepping into a new phase of usefulness, one that turns a simple recipe conversation into a full shopping experience. With Instacart now embedded inside the assistant, OpenAI is quietly shifting ChatGPT from a tool that suggests what to cook into a system that can help you buy everything needed to make it. The evolution signals a bigger shift in how AI assistants will handle everyday tasks. Also read: EMotorad Doodle Pro Review: A foldable fat-tyre E-bike that's fun, flawed but hard to ignore The new integration works in a way that feels natural inside a chat. Ask for a recipe and ChatGPT not only proposes one but also compiles the ingredients and converts them into a ready to order Instacart cart. The user can review, remove items, swap substitutions, and check out directly without switching apps. OpenAI calls this agentic commerce, where the model understands intent, assembles the task, and carries it through to completion. For Instacart, it is a perfect entry point. Users plan meals where they talk about food and recipes. For OpenAI, it demonstrates how ChatGPT can move beyond information toward action. A chatbot that once offered suggestions now helps finish the job. The launch lands at a sensitive moment. Just before this announcement, users had spotted app suggestions inside ChatGPT, leading to speculation that OpenAI was experimenting with ads. The company denied running advertisements and promptly removed the said app suggestions. Still, the Instacart rollout raises the same underlying question. If ChatGPT proposes a meal and then offers to purchase the ingredients, how different is that from a promotional nudge? Also read: Keyboard macros explained: How to setup macros for PC gaming OpenAI frames the change not as advertising but as utility. Its goal is to turn the assistant into a full task agent, and grocery shopping offers the ideal test case. The friction between search, planning, and purchasing collapses into a single conversation. Even so, the merging of assistance and commerce will make users watch carefully. The shift may be convenient, but it brings expectations of transparency. This move highlights the broader strategy behind ChatGPT's evolution. The assistant is no longer a passive responder. It is being designed to become an engine that executes everyday chores, from planning schedules to managing errands. Grocery shopping is only the beginning. OpenAI has hinted that more retailers and service providers will integrate with ChatGPT, expanding its role as an all purpose agent that interacts with real world systems. The rollout is limited for now. Instacart operates only in certain regions, so these features remain largely US centric. But as international delivery companies explore similar partnerships, the model could widen quickly. ChatGPT's shift into commerce marks a moment where AI stops being purely informational and becomes operational. The assistant that once suggested dinner now goes a step further and delivers everything you need to make it. It is a preview of a future where tasks start and end within a conversation, and where AI handles not just ideas but actions.