ChatGPT Shopping: Product Feeds, Checkout and Opt-Out

ChatGPT shopping is the part of ChatGPT that shows products, prices and merchant links in answers. OpenAI documents two ways for a store to take part: its search crawler OAI-SearchBot, and product feeds from approved merchants. If you sell online, allow OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt. If OpenAI approves your store, also send a product feed.

Allow OAI-SearchBot

OpenAI’s crawler page says that OAI-SearchBot shows websites in the search features of ChatGPT. Sites that block it do not appear in ChatGPT search answers, but they can still appear as navigational links.

If you want ChatGPT search to show your store, add this group to robots.txt:

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /

OpenAI says that its search systems need about 24 hours to adjust after you change robots.txt. The robots.txt setting for GPTBot, the OpenAI training crawler, is separate. A block of GPTBot does not block OAI-SearchBot. The OAI-SearchBot guide gives the user-agent string and the published IP ranges.

Send a product feed

A product feed is structured data about each product that you send to OpenAI. The Get Started guide says that feeds give ChatGPT the catalog data it needs to show accurate product information in shopping experiences. Only approved partners can send feeds. To apply, use the form at chatgpt.com/merchants.

The feed is the first part of the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP). The protocol is described at agenticcommerce.dev and on GitHub.

You can send the feed as a file upload to an SFTP server or through an API. OpenAI recommends one full feed per day by file upload and updates through the day by API. Promotions can only go through the API.

The product file reference has one row for each item or variant. Nine fields are required: item_id, title, description, url, brand, seller_name, image_url, availability and price. Product URLs and image URLs must be public.

Feed flags for each product

Three fields in the feed control where a product can appear:

Field	Default	What it does
is_eligible_search	true	false removes the product from search and also from checkout
is_eligible_checkout	false	true opts in to checkout, but only if search is also true and OpenAI turned on checkout for your store
is_ads_eligible	off, unless your feed has an Ads default	true lets ads use the product. It does not depend on the search flag

OpenAI says that search eligibility “does not guarantee display”. If you want to keep one product out of ChatGPT search, set is_eligible_search to false for that row.

Instant Checkout

Instant Checkout shows a checkout form inside ChatGPT. The Key concepts guide lists three parts that a merchant must build: the product feed, the Agentic Checkout Spec and the Delegated Payment Spec. ChatGPT collects the buyer details and calls your checkout endpoints. Your systems accept or decline the order and charge the payment.

The commerce FAQ says that OpenAI is not the merchant of record. You are, so you handle refunds and chargebacks.

Prohibited products

The Get Started guide allows only products that are legal, safe and fit for a general audience. Its list of prohibited products includes adult content, alcohol, nicotine, gambling, weapons and prescription-only medicines. OpenAI can remove a product, or stop showing a seller, that breaks these rules.

Ads and OAI-AdsBot

OpenAI also sells ads in ChatGPT. Ads that use a product catalog have their own setup in the Ads product feeds guide. When you submit an ad, OAI-AdsBot visits the landing page to make sure that it follows OpenAI policies. OpenAI says that OAI-AdsBot visits only pages submitted as ads, and that its data does not train foundation models.