PayPal Is Plugging Directly Into ChatGPT, Here's What the New Deal with OpenAI Entails

Edyme

October 28, 2025

PayPal will manage the behind-the-scenes work, including payment routing, fraud prevention, and merchant validation

PayPal is stepping directly into the future of e-commerce, and it’s doing it inside ChatGPT.

The fintech giant announced a partnership with OpenAI that will embed PayPal’s digital wallet into the popular AI chatbot, allowing users to shop and pay for products they discover through ChatGPT.

The deal, finalized over the weekend and revealed via CNBC, marks the first time a major payments company has been integrated directly into OpenAI’s platform.

According to PayPal CEO Alex Chriss, the partnership is about creating a “safe and secure checkout experience” for ChatGPT’s growing user base.

“We’ve got hundreds of millions of loyal PayPal wallet holders who will now be able to click the ‘Buy with PayPal’ button on ChatGPT,” Chriss said. The integration will go live next year, opening up ChatGPT to both PayPal buyers and merchants across its ecosystem.

Turning AI Into a personal shopper

The collaboration builds on OpenAI’s expanding push into agentic commerce, a concept where AI agents can act like human shopping assistants.

With over 700 million weekly ChatGPT users, the company envisions a future where users can ask for recommendations, compare products, and make instant purchases, all without leaving the chat.

ChatGPT has already partnered with platforms like Shopify, Etsy, and Walmart to enable AI-driven shopping. Now, with PayPal handling transactions, the chatbot can provide suggestions and also end-to-end shopping experiences.

PayPal will manage the behind-the-scenes work, including payment routing, fraud prevention, and merchant validation, so sellers don’t need to register directly with OpenAI.

Chriss said the partnership also shows PayPal’s broader ambition to become the “payments backbone” for the next wave of AI-driven commerce.

The firm recently inked similar deals with Google and AI startup Perplexity to expand its role in automated payments. He added that users will retain PayPal’s standard consumer protections, such as dispute resolution and purchase tracking, while pulling funds directly from linked bank accounts or stored balances.

“It’s not just that a transaction can happen,” Chriss said. “It’s that this is a trusted set of merchants, the largest merchant network in the world from PayPal, that are verified, with the largest set of verified consumers in a consumer wallet.”