PayPal’s Honey Teams Up With ChatGPT for AI Shopping
▼ Summary
– PayPal is adding new AI-powered features to its Honey browser extension that provide product recommendations, pricing, and deals to chatbot users.
– The extension displays AI-recommended products with real-time pricing and merchant options, while also surfacing additional retailers the AI may have missed.
– These features are designed to help consumers compare prices and boost merchant sales through personalized offers.
– The integrations are AI-agnostic but will initially work with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, with plans to expand to other AI platforms.
– PayPal’s launch follows recent negative press about Honey, including accusations of stealing influencer commissions and resulting lawsuits.
PayPal’s Honey browser extension is introducing new capabilities that integrate directly with AI chatbots to assist users with their online shopping research. This development, announced on Tuesday, follows closely on the heels of a recent partnership between PayPal and Google in the realm of agentic commerce. The enhanced extension will now provide shoppers using AI assistants with personalized product recommendations, real-time pricing information, and access to exclusive deals.
When a user asks a shopping-related question within their preferred AI chatbot, the PayPal Honey extension will display links to recommended products. These links come complete with current prices, various merchant choices, and available promotional offers. The system possesses the intelligence to recognize when an AI’s suggestions might have overlooked major retail outlets, ensuring consumers see a broader range of purchasing options.
These new features serve a dual purpose: they empower consumers to make more informed price comparisons while simultaneously helping merchants increase their sales through targeted, personalized offers. PayPal has indicated that these shopping integrations are designed to be compatible with various AI platforms. Initially, the functionality will be available with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, with plans to expand to other AI services in the future.
This initiative is part of a larger rollout of agentic commerce projects from PayPal. The broader strategy includes the aforementioned Google collaboration, a dedicated agentic commerce offering, a remote MCP server, an Agent Toolkit, and several smaller promotional deals. These include a one-year free subscription to Perplexity’s premium service and complimentary access to the new Comet browser.
The move comes at a time when AI providers themselves are becoming direct competitors in the e-commerce space. Many are developing their own systems for product recommendations and direct merchant connections. For example, OpenAI recently unveiled its own agentic shopping system, which features an “Instant Checkout” option and is positioned to challenge giants like Amazon and Google.
Although OpenAI’s system currently only supports Etsy, with integration for Shopify merchants expected soon, it signals a significant shift in consumer behavior. Instead of starting their product searches on traditional websites or major marketplaces, shoppers may increasingly turn to AI chatbots as their primary research tool. This evolution in shopping habits necessitates innovative products like the enhanced Honey extension to maintain relevance.
This product launch occurs against a backdrop of recent challenges for Honey. The company has faced negative publicity after a prominent YouTuber alleged that it improperly claimed credit for sales generated by content creators, thereby depriving them of earned commissions. These allegations have subsequently led to legal action being taken against the company.
(Source: TechCrunch)
