By Elizabeth Kartini
Publication Date: 2025-11-25 20:45:00
Just in time for the holiday shopping rush, two of AI’s biggest players are making their move into e-commerce. OpenAI and Perplexity both announced AI shopping features this week that aim to transform how we discover and purchase products online.
See also – OpenAI launches group chats in ChatGPT for up to 20 people
OpenAI’s new “shopping research” experience in ChatGPT represents a significant upgrade from simple product queries. Instead of just checking prices or confirming features, users can now describe complex shopping needs – like finding “the quietest cordless stick vacuum for a small apartment” or choosing between three different bikes – and get a personalized buyer’s guide in minutes. The feature asks clarifying questions, researches across the internet, reviews quality sources, and builds on ChatGPT’s understanding of users from past conversations.
Meanwhile, Perplexity is taking a different approach with its free agentic shopping tool launching this week for US users. Partnering with PayPal, the AI search company will allow consumers to purchase items from more than 5,000 merchants directly without leaving Perplexity’s search engine. The tool detects shopping intent more accurately than Perplexity’s previous “Buy With Pro” offering and draws on memory from users’ past searches to deliver personalized results.
What’s interesting here is how both companies are approaching the same problem from different…