PayPal and OpenAI close deal to enhance payments in ChatGPT, shares rise by 13%.

The payment giant PayPal has secured its position as the first digital wallet integrated into ChatGPT, marking a crucial moment in the convergence of artificial intelligence and fintech, which caused shares to rise by as much as 14% in pre-market trading on Tuesday.

The partnership will allow millions of ChatGPT users to complete purchases directly within the chatbot interface starting in 2026, eliminating the need to navigate to external payment pages. The agreement positions PayPal at the forefront of what industry experts are calling “agentic commerce” — where AI-powered assistants autonomously handle product discovery, comparison, and purchasing on behalf of consumers.

“Hundreds of millions of people turn to ChatGPT each week for help with everyday tasks, including finding products they love, and more than 400 million use PayPal to make purchases,” said Alex Chriss, president and CEO of PayPal. “By partnering with OpenAI and adopting the Agency Commerce Protocol, PayPal will drive payments and commerce experiences that help people move from chat to payment in just a few taps.”

The Mechanics of Trading in ChatGPT

The integration leverages the Agent Commerce Protocol (ACP) from OpenAI, an open-source framework developed in partnership with a payment processor. This protocol allows merchants to make their products discoverable and purchasable directly within AI conversations, fundamentally altering the traditional e-commerce funnel.

Under the agreement, PayPal will handle multiple critical backend processes, including merchant routing, payment validation, and orchestration, eliminating the need for individual merchants to establish separate integrations with OpenAI. The company will support both instant payment for consumers and payment processing through its delegated payment API for card transactions.

Users will be able to finance purchases through multiple payment methods already linked to their PayPal accounts, including bank accounts, stored balances, and credit cards, while benefiting from the existing protections for PayPal buyers and sellers, package tracking, and dispute resolution services.

Starting in 2026, the protocol will make product catalogs from tens of millions of PayPal merchants discoverable within ChatGPT conversations. This includes both small businesses and large retail brands in the clothing, fashion, beauty, home improvement, and electronics sectors.

The e-commerce drive of OpenAI intensifies

The agreement with PayPal represents the latest in a rapid series of e-commerce partnerships for OpenAI. In September, the company launched Instant Payment with Etsy, allowing users in the U.S. to purchase products from the handmade goods marketplace directly through ChatGPT. More than a million Shopify merchants, including prominent brands like Glossier, SKIMS, Spanx, and Vuori, were subsequently integrated into the platform.

More recently, retail giant Walmart announced a partnership with OpenAI in mid-October, allowing customers to explore and purchase products through ChatGPT. These moves position OpenAI as a potential competitor to established giants of e-commerce, with ChatGPT's more than 700 million weekly users representing a massive potential customer base.

“It's a whole new paradigm for shopping,” Chriss said. “It's hard to imagine that agency commerce won't be a big part of the future.”

PayPal's push in cryptocurrencies continues

The partnership with OpenAI comes at a time when PayPal continues to expand its cryptocurrency capabilities, positioning the company to connect traditional finance, AI, and digital assets. The dollar-backed stablecoin from the firm, PayPal USD (PYUSD), has experienced explosive growth, with its circulating supply increasing to approximately $2.77 billion by the end of October 2025.

This represents a 113% month-over-month increase since early October, making PYUSD the seventh largest stablecoin by market capitalization. The token, issued by Paxos Trust Company and backed by deposits in US dollars and short-term Treasury bonds, has been expanded to more than 13 blockchains through the LayerZero interoperability protocol.

PayPal has also expanded peer-to-peer cryptocurrency transfers in September, allowing U.S. users to send and receive Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and other digital assets directly within the PayPal app. Currently, the company offers annual rewards of 4% to users who hold PYUSD in their PayPal wallets.

These cryptocurrency initiatives, combined with the partnership with OpenAI, suggest that PayPal is positioning itself as a comprehensive payment infrastructure provider for the next generation of digital commerce.

Solid financial performance accompanies the announcement

The announcement of the partnership coincided with PayPal's third-quarter earnings report, which showed $8.4 billion in revenue, a 7% year-over-year increase. Transaction margin dollars rose 6% to $3.9 billion, while GAAP earnings per share increased 32% to $1.30.

In a significant milestone, PayPal initiated its first quarterly dividend of $0.14 per share, signaling confidence in its cash generation and long-term profitability. The company also raised its full-year guidance, expecting transaction margin growth of between 6% and 7% for 2025.

PYPL shares rose above $80, reaching their strongest level since February 2025. The positive momentum of the stock reflects investors' enthusiasm about PayPal's strategic positioning in the emerging landscape of agency commerce.

Expanding AI Integration Beyond Payments

Beyond consumer-oriented trading features, PayPal is significantly expanding its internal use of OpenAI technology. The company is expanding access to ChatGPT Enterprise for its more than 24,000 employees and empowering engineers with Codex, OpenAI's AI-powered programming assistant.

This dual approach — integrating AI into both customer-facing products and internal operations — demonstrates PayPal's commitment to harnessing artificial intelligence to accelerate product development, increase employee productivity, and enhance customer experiences.

Final Reflections

The partnership between PayPal and OpenAI represents a crucial moment in the evolution of online retail. As AI chatbots increasingly become the starting point for product discovery and purchasing decisions, payment providers and merchants that successfully integrate into these platforms can gain significant competitive advantages.

However, the change also raises questions about the concentration of trade power. Industry analysts have pointed out that if AI assistants become the main gatekeepers of product discovery, companies that control these platforms could exert enormous influence over which products consumers see and buy — a dynamic that has generated scrutiny in search engines and traditional markets.

For now, OpenAI maintains that its product recommendations remain “organic and non-sponsored, ranked purely based on their relevance to the user.” But as agency commerce matures, the balance between user experience, merchant access, and platform monetization is likely to face continuous scrutiny.

With Bank of America Securities projecting that ChatGPT will handle approximately 20 billion purchase-related messages this year, the risks of establishing payment infrastructure in AI-driven commerce have never been greater, and PayPal has positioned itself at the center of this transformation.