How Scared Should Google Be Of Shopify And ChatGPT’s Potential Integration?
A bombshell code leak suggests ChatGPT is preparing to integrate directly with Shopify, allowing users to discover and buy products without ever leaving the chatbot. Chris Walton, Anne Mezzenga, and the A&M CRG team break down how this could upend search, crush Google’s e-commerce edge, and change online retail forever.
🚀 Is this the future of AI-driven shopping?
🛍️ How should retailers—and Google—respond?
🧠 And are most CEOs even ready for what’s coming?
This may be the most important retail story of the year.
This discussion was brought to you by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Simbe, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, and ClearDemand.
For the full episode, head here: https://youtu.be/LpW3lI-L7TI
#chatgpt #shopify #AICommerce #retailinnovation #OmniTalkRetail #ConversationalCommerce #aishopping #GoogleVsOpenAI #RetailFuture #agenticai #ecommercetrends #RetailPodcast
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Transcript
Shopify could soon be integrating with ChatGPT.
Speaker A:Search according to Media Post, recent co discovery suggests that OpenAI is preparing to transform ChatGPT into a direct shopping platform through Shopify integration.
Speaker A:OpenAI has quietly added lines of code to ChatGPT that indicate direct shopping functionality.
Speaker A:Rather than simply adding affiliate links, the code suggests a deeper integration that would enable ChatGPT users to complete purchases without ever leaving the platform.
Speaker A:The uncovered code indicates features including product pricing displays, shipping information fields, Buy now options and embedded checkout buttons, essentially transforming the AI Chatbot into a comprehensive shopping interface.
Speaker A:The model appears designed to allow Shopify to directly populate ChatGPT with relevant product suggestions based on user conversations, creating a seamless shopping experience that keeps users within the ChatGPT ecosystem.
Speaker A:Luis we're, we're talking about moving the needle technology right now.
Speaker A:This is definitely one of those headlines.
Speaker A:How scared should people like Google be in this by this ChatGPT and Shopify integration?
Speaker B:Very.
Speaker B:I mean yeah, obviously AI is a revolution, right?
Speaker B:It's, it's impacting, it's going to impact all sectors of the economy.
Speaker B:It's impacting our, our lives at many different levels, right?
Speaker B:And it's, you know, maybe some slightly frightening but very exciting at the same time with, with all the, everything that can be done.
Speaker B:And one big question obviously is where is the value going to lie in the value chain, right?
Speaker B:Who are going to be the winners?
Speaker B:And that's true within the technology players, the ones who are actually building the algorithms.
Speaker B:Is it going to be a commodity?
Speaker B:Is OpenAI tomorrow going to be displaced in its leadership by the other players, Google, including deepseek and many others?
Speaker B:That's a big question.
Speaker B:And the second question is how exactly is it going to impact in our case here, corporate America and consumer and a lot of the CEOs and executives that I talk to about these topics, they're still in the consumer space, still scratching their heads on where is the impact going to lie?
Speaker B:How does it really transform my company?
Speaker B:How quickly and what should I do?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:And that's from how do you hit corporate America and how are you a winner?
Speaker B:If you look at the Shopify integration, that's more from the technology standpoint and the offer is it going to be a winner takes all?
Speaker B:Where chatgpt, once they start offering that functionality and become a one stop shop where you can actually buy from your app and do all of the functions that you typically go on Google for, does that make Google obsolete?
Speaker B:Online e commerce shopping world?
Speaker B:So if I'm Google, I'm scared.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker A:I mean it's like the search, the search.
Speaker A:I feel like we're back when Google came online and it was Bing and Google and Netscape and like all these things really like it's like the search is starting all over again and it's really anyone's game because once you start getting integration, I mean we heard it shop talk from, from Sean Scott, the head of Google Shopping who is like already, you know, we're seeing engagement happen in Google and Google's not a retailer but they're facilitating all of these shopping transactions.
Speaker A:I think like 20% of Lens searches, he said, are already ending in a commerce transaction.
Speaker A:So it's so interesting because it's going to be who do you go to for your, your problem solver?
Speaker A:Is it perplexity?
Speaker A:Is it Chat GPT?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Is it, is it Google, Gemini and, and, or Amazon even like we heard a couple weeks ago, where you can go in there and transact fully just by sending in one request.
Speaker A:I'm curious Luis, because I talked about to several retailers last week about this.
Speaker A:Are, are those CEOs in, in these retailers and brands, are they taking any steps forward right now to kind of prepare their products to be showing up in these types of search engines?
Speaker A:Or do you think that they're still kind of, it's still in its infancy.
Speaker B:Still.
Speaker B:Still in the infancy.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:And you're going to see, I mean a lot of those CEOs are thinking how do I gain competitive advantage?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:So the ones who are more bold and you know, take more risk or more visionary or able to focus out of, you know, the day to day grind into project projecting into the future.
Speaker B:They're trying to, to get into the AI revolution in a much faster way and much bolder, but they still don't know where to focus the energy.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:You can only do so much.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:So is being present on, you know, the future Chat GPT, Shopify, is that, you know, should that be your focus or are you continuing to do what you're doing, trying to optimize the day to day business?
Speaker B:So those are strategic questions of how they allocate their resources.
Speaker B:And there's not a clear, clear cut answer on that yet.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Jeff, I assume you're hearing a lot from the clients that you're working with as it relates to this too and where it makes sense.
Speaker A:I mean this I feel like is still kind of like a, in the R and D kind of category for some retailers, but maybe moving, going to require that they move much More quickly.
Speaker A:What are you seeing, Jeff, with your clients?
Speaker C:Yeah, it's mostly confusion around, around how this is actually going to all kind of end.
Speaker C:I, I do believe this is going to be faster than a 10 cart rollout on, on a, on a digital shopping cart.
Speaker C:Yeah, we will see, we will see a lot of bets being placed.
Speaker C:Capital is already being allocated to huge tech investments.
Speaker C:And in trying to be that differentiator, as Luis mentioned, and trying to get that competitive advantage, you're going to see some pretty interesting things coming.
Speaker C:Not in the next two to three years.
Speaker C:You're talking next probably two to three quarters.
Speaker C:And I think it'll be positive mostly from just a consumer experience, but from a retail experience.
Speaker C:It could be a huge, huge unlock to either access new customers or actually even save on the amount of money that they're placing with overall marketing spend.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker B:It'll be interesting to see companies need to start to have an answer.
Speaker B:Even just from an investor communication standpoint.
Speaker B:You're seeing more and more on earnings calls.
Speaker B:The question from analysts, how are you preparing for the AI revolution?
Speaker B:What are you doing?
Speaker B:What actions are you taking?
Speaker B:So, and there's a pressure as well from investors to get ready for this revolution, right?
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:And Chris, I mean, what do you, what would you be doing if you were Google right now or how would you be feeling?
Speaker A:How would you be rallying the troops?
Speaker D:Well, I don't know.
Speaker D:I mean, I think what I take away from this conversation really is I think Luis's point about, you know, how does cpg, the thing I started thinking about the most in this conversation is like, how do CPGs view this announcement versus retailers?
Speaker D:If I'm a CPG, I don't think I'm paying too much attention to this because I think my job is at the end of the day is to develop good products and make sure they're available for the people.
Speaker D:And so I don't think, you know, how people transact in those is really going to impact the CPGs all that much down the line or at least I have trouble seeing it.
Speaker D:I think there's advantages that they can, or they can take advantage of, advantage of Gen AI for different use cases.
Speaker D:But I'm not too worried about, you know, the advent of the impact on this for them, but for the retailers, to Jeff's point, it, it's just incredibly disruptive.
Speaker D:And then going back to the question at hand of how scared should Google be or what should Google do?
Speaker D:I mean, I think at this point the thing as I sit back I think everybody's scared of everybody at this point because you throw agentic AI into the mix, which this isn't even about yet, in the core of this headline.
Speaker D:And it's going to be hard to know who is actually powering what at the end of the day.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker D:Like all these things could be working together and no one knows what's going on.
Speaker D:You don't know your arm from your elbow.
Speaker D:So.
Speaker D:And the idea of like user search here being what powers this too, that's in some ways so old school now when you bring in a gentic AI.
Speaker D:And that's the crazy thing about that to just point too is that's two years old at this point.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker D:So like it's just amazing to me how fast all of this is changing.
Speaker D:And the average retail, average retail CEO, not CPG CEO, but the average retail CEO likely has no idea what is likely going to hit him or her here over the next five years.
Speaker D:And it's going to be, it's going to be crazy to watch.
Speaker D:I mean, that's why you and I and I were talking yesterday too.
Speaker D:This is the most important headline of the week.
Speaker D:Of the five.
Speaker D:This one by far and away, in terms of the impact on retail overall over the next 10 years.
Speaker D:The movement in this direction continues to be something we got to keep on top of.
