PayPal Reveals Partnership with OpenAI for payments on ChatGPT

PayPal is cementing a landmark deal with OpenAI. The agreement embeds the PayPal digital wallet directly into ChatGPT, instantly allowing users to pay for items found through the leading consumer AI platform.

The market immediately recognised the significance, driving PayPal’s shares up approximately 4 percent on the news. This move positions the fintech giant as the first major payments wallet integrated into ChatGPT, signalling a profound shift in how consumers will transact in the age of generative AI.

The New Paradigm of 'Agentic Commerce'

The agreement, finalised recently, means both sides of PayPal’s massive ecosystem can now connect through ChatGPT, starting next year. PayPal CEO Alex Chriss clarified the dual advantage: PayPal users gain the ability to purchase items via the AI platform, while its merchants can list and sell their inventory directly within the experience.

Chriss emphasised the benefit for the consumer base: “We’ve got hundreds of millions of loyal PayPal wallet holders who now will be able to click the ‘Buy with PayPal button’ on ChatGPT and have a safe and secure checkout experience.”

This partnership is central to OpenAI’s strategy to expand ChatGPT into e-commerce. The core concept: utilise AI to act as a personal shopper for its massive user base, which exceeds 700 million weekly users. OpenAI recently signalled this direction with commerce deals involving Shopify, Etsy, and Walmart.

The CEO sees this as a fundamental change in consumer behaviour. “It’s a whole new paradigm for shopping,” Chriss stated. “It’s hard to imagine that agentic commerce isn’t going to be a big part of the future.”

The Trust Factor: A Verified Ecosystem

PayPal seeks to serve as the foundational payments layer for this emerging "agentic AI shopping" landscape. The company has recently made similar moves, sealing agreements with Google and AI search firm Perplexity.

Beyond simple checkout, PayPal will handle the critical, behind-the-scenes work for merchants selling on ChatGPT. The firm will manage merchant routing and payment validation, eliminating the need for individual sellers to sign up with OpenAI separately. This dramatically simplifies the entry point for PayPal's vast network of merchants.

Chriss highlights the verification process as the deal's strongest feature, one that dramatically reduces risk for both parties. Users can fund purchases using linked bank accounts, credit cards, or stored balances, securing buyer protections, package tracking, and dispute resolution.

This verification is the ultimate value proposition. Chriss stressed the importance of the verified network: “It’s not just that a transaction can happen. It’s that this is a trusted set of merchants, the largest merchant network in the world from PayPal, that are verified, with the largest set of verified consumers in a consumer wallet.”

Will this focus on trust and verification give PayPal the decisive advantage in the race to control AI-driven e-commerce payments?