JD Sports launches AI shopping in US, letting customers buy through ChatGPT and Copilot

Britain's JD Sports launches AI commerce in key US market

LONDON, Jan 12 (Reuters) - British sportswear retailer JD Sports Fashion (JD.L), opens new tab said on Monday customers in the United States, its largest market, will be able to use AI platforms to search for and purchase its products. In the U.S., the group trades from over 2,500 stores across the JD, DTLR, Shoe Palace and Hibbett brands and also trades online. It makes over 40% of its global sales in the U.S. Starting with Microsoft's (MSFT.O), opens new tab Copilot and later extending to Google's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT, customers in the U.S. will be able to find and buy sports footwear, apparel and accessories from JD using the AI platforms. JD said it has partnered with commercetools, a digital commerce platform provider, and financial infrastructure firm Stripe to provide the service which connects AI-driven searches to secure checkout and payments. "Today's announcement is an important step into the next era of online shopping and positions JD to be ahead of the curve as the global retail industry embraces AI," said Jetan Chowk, JD's chief technology & transformation officer. JD is scheduled to issue a trading update for the Christmas quarter on January 21. In November, it forecast annual profit at the lower end of then market expectations, saying it was mindful of weak economic and consumer indicators in its key countries. Shares in JD were up 1.2%, paring losses over the last year to 11.8%. Reporting by James Davey; editing by William James Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

JD Sports brings AI shopping

JD Sports brings AI shopping, and pushes retail further from the store For years, online shopping followed a fixed path. Search bar, product grid, filters, checkout. The interface barely changed, even as everything else on the internet did. That path is now breaking. Monday 12 January, 2026, JD Sports Fashion plc (JD Group) became one of the first large retailers to let US customers search and buy sneakers directly inside AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini. No website visit. No app. Just a conversation that ends with a payment. Basically, a customer can chat with an AI bot, say "add these shoes to my cart," and complete a purchase in one click. JD Sports has agreed a global deal with commercetools to enable "one-click" purchases on AI assistants including Copilot, Gemini and ChatGPT. US customers will simply tell the chatbot what they want and pay instantly via Stripe's integrated payment flow. The retailer is the first to deploy commercetools' "Agentic Jumpstart" solution along with Stripe's Agentic Commerce Suite (ACS). Stripe handles the payment and fraud protection, while commercetools' AI Hub keeps JD's product data, pricing and availability in sync across all AI channels. For example, "Find me a pair of Nike Air Max size 10." The AI queries JD's catalog (via commercetools) and returns relevant products, with images and details. The shopper can then say "buy this pair," and Stripe handles the checkout seamlessly. Commercetools and Stripe emphasize that all payment and fulfillment data still flow through JD's systems - the retailer retains control over inventory, pricing, and customer experience. AI-driven shopping shifts the act of buying from browsing to intent-based conversation. Instead of scrolling through hundreds of sneakers, a customer can ask for "black running shoes under $150, good for daily training," refine the request, compare options, and pay, all within the same chat. The AI handles discovery, filtering, and decision support in one flow. For consumers, that means less friction and less time spent navigating interfaces designed around catalogs, not questions. For retailers, it means the loss of something they've relied on for two decades: control over the shopping journey. JD Sports CEO Regis Schultz compared the impact of AI on retail to the internet boom of the late 1990s and suggested it could shrink physical store footprints by reducing the need for cash desks. The comment points to a wider rethink. If discovery and checkout move into AI layers, both digital and physical stores become less central. Traditional e-commerce platforms are built around pages, categories, and conversion funnels. AI shopping ignores most of that. When purchases happen inside chatbots, platforms lose visibility into how customers arrive at decisions. Brand differentiation becomes harder when products are presented as answers rather than destinations. Loyalty shifts from websites to whichever AI assistant the customer trusts. This creates a new competitive layer. Retailers are no longer just competing on price, delivery, or UX, but on how well their inventory, data, and brand translate into AI-mediated conversations. It also raises questions for marketplaces. If AI assistants can compare products across multiple retailers in real time, the advantage of being the "place people go to shop" weakens. Letting customers buy without visiting a website introduces new risks. Retailers must ensure that payments remain secure, that inventory and pricing are accurate in real time, and that the brand experience doesn't dissolve into a generic AI response. Stripe's role here is critical, acting as the trust layer that makes conversational checkout viable at scale. There's also the issue of accountability. When something goes wrong, a failed payment, a wrong size, a delayed delivery, the customer interacts with an AI, not a store. Retailers still own the outcome, even if they no longer own the interface. JD Sports is not alone. The move points to a broader pattern: commerce is migrating upward into AI systems that sit between consumers and brands. As mobile apps reshaped shopping in the 2010s, conversational AI is reshaping it again, this time by pushing the store itself out of the center of the experience. What replaces it is less visible, but more powerful: intent, context, and conversation. Retail isn't disappearing. It's dissolving into the tools people already use to think, search, and decide. There is something undeniably impressive about this evolution. Buying becomes faster, friction thins, decisions compress into a few lines of text. Yet, step by step, human interaction is quietly being removed from the equation. The cashier, the sales assistant, even the act of browsing alongside others, all fade into background infrastructure.

JD Sports plans to let shoppers buy through AI platforms

Retailer to allow 'one-click purchases' through assistants such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, beginning in US JD Sports has said it plans to allow customers to directly buy its products through AI platforms without leaving the apps. The British trainer and sportswear company will allow "one-click purchases" through platforms such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, as big retailers attempt to keep up with AI-powered shopping. The technology will launch in the US in the coming months, with potential to expand into other regions, the company said. Jetan Chowk, the JD Sports chief technology officer, told the Press Association that AI is "the future of how people will shop". "What we are currently seeing is that customers are regularly using AI apps to research and discover the products they want to buy," he said. "We can see that already and want to ensure we are moving early to meet customers and their needs in that space." AI usage has been booming in the retailer's core target demographic of shoppers aged between 18 and 24, he said. Research from the advisory company KPMG found last year that 30% of those aged between 25 and 34 use an AI-enabled chatbot to look for deals online. These large language models allow users to ask questions in conversational language. The platforms can then offer specific product suggestions, after scraping the internet and inbuilt datasets for relevant information. Some sources are given more trusted status than others. Several UK retailers have told the Guardian that they are working on generative engine optimisation, the latest incarnation of search engine optimisation, to help push their company to the top of results from AI chatbots. Tactics include making sure they appear in Reddit forums, as well as responding to reviews on Google or Trustpilot, and ensuring AI models can access the correct product data. It represents a new challenge for retailers competing for business online, as well as undermining Google's dominance in traditional search traffic for shopping. But Google has been developing its own AI features, and on Sunday announced that it had teamed up with several leading US retailers, including Walmart, to enable shopping within its Gemini AI chatbot. Sundar Pichai, the Google chief executive, said that customers would "soon be able to experience everything they love about Walmart directly in the Gemini app". More consumers are also using AI agents - autonomous digital secretaries - to help with their online shopping. Last year OpenAI, Perplexity, Google and Microsoft launched AI features that allow users to search for products through their chatbots, with agents that can complete orders on behalf of consumers. JD will report on its fourth-quarter trading after the crucial Christmas period on 21 January. The retailer said late last year that unemployment among young people in the UK had hit sales growth and profits.

JD Sports partners with commercetools for AI shopping integration By Investing.com

Investing.com -- JD Sports Fashion PLC (LON:JD) on Monday announced a global agreement with commercetools that will enable customers to make one-click purchases through artificial intelligence platforms. The partnership will allow JD Sports customers in the United States to purchase products directly through leading AI platforms including Microsoft's Copilot, Google's Gemini, and OpenAI's ChatGPT. The sportswear retailer plans to complete the roll-out of equivalent platforms across its UK and European operations later in 2026. This integration represents a significant step in retail technology, allowing consumers to shop through conversational AI interfaces rather than traditional e-commerce websites or mobile apps. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

Britain's JD Sports launches AI shopping for US customers

LONDON/NEW YORK, Jan 12 (Reuters) - British sportswear retailer JD Sports Fashion's customers in the United States, its largest market, will be able to use AI platforms to search for and purchase its products, the company said on Monday. The group trades from more than 2,500 stores across the JD, DTLR, Shoe Palace and Hibbett brands and online in the U.S., accounting for more than 40% of its global sales. Starting with Microsoft's Copilot and later extending to Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT, U.S. customers will be able to find and buy sports footwear, apparel and accessories from JD Sports using the AI platforms. JD Sports said it has partnered digital commerce platform provider commercetools and financial infrastructure company Stripe to provide the service that connects AI-driven searches to secure checkout and payments. Retailers including Walmart and Etsy are also working with tech companies to develop AI tools that allow shoppers to go from discovery within an AI chatbot to purchase without using the retailer's website or app. Walmart announced on Sunday that it was working with Google's Gemini to allow customers to buy products from certain businesses without leaving Gemini's AI chat interface. AI is reinventing the connection between the consumer and retailer, JD Sports CEO Regis Schultz said on the sidelines of a conference in New York. "25 years ago it was the internet. Today's AI, it's a new way to interact. So it's not about business, it's about interaction with the consumer and how we create the best service," Schultz said. Giving shoppers the ability to buy straight from an AI chatbot helps them to skip the line at cash desks that occupy 15% to 20% of the space in JD Sports stores, Schultz said, adding that those spaces could be repurposed to stock more product instead. The company is scheduled to issue a trading update for the Christmas quarter on January 21. In November, JD Sports forecast annual profit at the lower end of market expectations, saying it was mindful of weak economic and consumer indicators in its key countries. JD Sports shares closed 1% down on the London Stock Exchange, reversing gains made earlier in the session. (Reporting by James DaveyEditing by William James and David Goodman) By Siddharth Cavale and James Davey