ChatGPT Bailed on Shopping Checkouts — Good News for Expedia and Booking

Buying or booking directly inside ChatGPT has officially become vaporware — and investors in Expedia and Booking Holdings are breathing a sigh of relief.

OpenAI is shifting its shopping strategy to focus on discovery and research, leaving checkout to third-party app developers, The Information reported Thursday. 

An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the shift to Skift: “We’re prioritizing making ChatGPT search and product discovery great, with the Agentic Commerce Protocol serving as the infrastructure that connects users to merchants across the full shopping journey,” the spokesperson said, with Instant Checkout moving to apps.

OpenAI hadn’t explicitly targeted travel, but its early efforts in commerce l