PayPal merchants will soon be discoverable in ChatGPT, one of several announcements from PayPal this fall about services to help sellers take advantage of AI-powered platforms. The partnerships with OpenAI, Google, and with ecommerce platforms such as BigCommerce might not have been available to PayPal under eBay ownership. But after the 2015 split, AI may prove to be a springboard for PayPal.
PayPal CEO Alex Chriss said, “By partnering with OpenAI and adopting the Agentic Commerce Protocol, PayPal will power payments and commerce experiences that help people go from chat to checkout in just a few taps for our joint customer bases.” OpenAI and Stripe developed the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) as open source, allowing companies to transact with any AI agent and payment processor.
PayPal said, “For the tens of millions of merchants who use PayPal, ACP will bring in 2026 the product catalogs of small businesses as well as marquee retail brands across apparel, fashion, beauty, home improvement, and electronics to ChatGPT commerce, via PayPal’s ACP server—a trusted, scalable, and compliant access layer to a global network of merchants that will not require individual merchant integrations.
“PayPal will manage merchant routing, payment validation, and orchestration behind the scenes. This integration will make millions of products discoverable and purchasable through ChatGPT.”
Last month, PayPal announced a landmark partnership with Google, whose CEO Sundar Pichai explained, “Through this partnership, PayPal will use our industry-leading AI to enhance services and security, and we will more deeply integrate PayPal’s innovative payment capabilities for a better experience across Google products and platforms.”
In addition to embedding PayPal Solutions across Google’s platforms, the deal covers agentic shopping and commerce experiences: “PayPal and Google are collaborating to create new AI shopping experiences and developing standards that will help shape the future of agentic commerce across the industry. The partnership will bring together PayPal’s global payment infrastructure, data-driven personalization and trusted identity solutions, alongside Google’s AI expertise to deliver new AI experiences. The companies, along with many others, are also advocating for the adoption of best practices such as Google’s Agent Payments Protocol, a secure, open, scalable solution paving the way for the future of agentic commerce.”
PayPal is also using Google Cloud to power PayPal’s “next-generation” commerce and payments platform, according to the announcement.
“In this emerging world of agentic commerce, trust and innovation are key,” said Alex Chriss, President and CEO of PayPal. “Together with Google, we are leading the way for digital commerce, ensuring greater opportunities for merchants and users worldwide. We are bringing PayPal’s products and services to billions of Google users and redefining what’s possible at global scale.”
PayPal also entered into a partnership with Perplexity (to give PayPal and Venmo customers early access to its Comet AI browser) and with Mastercard.
Sellers can learn more about PayPal agentic tools and sign up for a waitlist on the PayPal.ai website. PayPal posted the following video on YouTube on Tuesday about its partnership with OpenAI to power ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout and Agentic Commerce:
