OpenAI’s launch art for ChatGPT Wallet. Image: OpenAI
ChatGPT can now spend your money. OpenAI launched ChatGPT Wallet on Friday, letting its always-on dots agents pay for things on a user’s behalf with a stored American Express, Mastercard or Visa card. Every purchase still needs the user’s say-so, confirmed with Face ID or a fingerprint, and for now it is open only to ChatGPT Pro subscribers in the US.
How a purchase works
Users add a card once. When their dot is ready to buy, it shows the items, the total and the chosen card, and the user approves with a security check such as Face ID or a fingerprint scan. Each approval leaves a record of what the user authorised.
The real card number never changes hands. Once the user approves, the card network issues a payment token, a stand-in card number, security code and expiry date, and the purchase is charged to the user’s card without the agent or the shop seeing the actual details. OpenAI says users keep their card’s rewards and its protections for eligible disputes, for example over a faulty item, and that the shop keeps control of pricing, delivery and returns.
Approving every purchase is only the starting point. “Over time,” OpenAI says, it expects users to let their agent buy without asking each time, within limits they set such as a spending cap, purchase categories or a time period, with biometric checks and records of authorisation still in place.
“Start it in a contained environment”
OpenAI says the small launch is deliberate. Luke Gebb, executive vice president and global head of innovation at Amex, told CNBC it was the “right approach to make sure things are working”, and that with ChatGPT’s 1.2 billion weekly users OpenAI can “turn up the volume” whenever it wants:
It just makes sense to watch it, start it in a contained environment, and then keep rolling from there.
Luke Gebb, Amex, to CNBC
OpenAI told CNBC it is not taking a cut of transactions to start with, though shopping could become a new source of revenue later. Chaya Nayak, who leads product for monetisation and payments at OpenAI, said the wallet is the next step after helping people find products: “if someone found something they’re really excited to buy, then we want to be able to get them through to that endpoint.”
Who can use it, and where
ChatGPT Wallet is rolling out from Friday inside dots, the always-on agents OpenAI unveiled at DevDay in September. At launch it is limited to ChatGPT Pro subscribers aged 18 and over in the US with an eligible US-issued card. Pro costs $100, $200 or $500 a month, and every tier includes dots.
That leaves out everyone else for now, including Pro users in Canada, Australia, India, Japan and the other countries where dots launched in September, and a non-US card won’t work. In the UK, the EU and Switzerland, dots itself still isn’t available on Pro. OpenAI hasn’t given a date or a list of countries for a wider rollout, saying only that it will “expand availability” after learning from early use.
Shops have to let the agents in
The harder part may be getting websites to accept an AI at the checkout. OpenAI admits some sites “may unintentionally block purchases” through the wallet, and alongside it published a Commerce Partner Playbook. It asks businesses to set their CDN or firewall to recognise ChatGPT agents’ signed requests using Web Bot Auth, to claim their business in ChatGPT and upload a product feed, and to talk to their payment and fraud providers so legitimate agent purchases aren’t declined. OpenAI says it is working with fraud prevention firms Forter, Riskified, Sardine and Signifyd and with Adyen, Checkout.com and Stripe on that.
Banks have their own doubts about agents. Last month, big US lenders were reported to be finding unvetted AI agents inside customer accounts, often logged in with the customer’s own password, while Amex has been preparing for what it calls agentic commerce. Nayak told CNBC the industry has work to do:
It’s going to take time for the ecosystem to build the right infrastructure to be able to make this experience really amazing and seamless across all of their sites.
Chaya Nayak, OpenAI, to CNBC
Why it matters
A stored card turns dots from a shopping researcher into an agent that can act with your money, and OpenAI is betting that tokenised cards and a biometric check on every purchase are enough to make people comfortable with that. The bigger tests come later: whether shops let its agents through, and whether users will trust them with pre-approved spending.
Sources: OpenAI, OpenAI Commerce Partner Playbook, CNBC (interviews with Chaya Nayak and Luke Gebb).
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