The news: OpenAI launched ChatGPT Wallet, which AI agents called “dots” can use to complete purchases for users, per a press release. 

The wallet was built with American Express, Mastercard, and Visa and will roll out first to ChatGPT Pro subscribers in the US. Users have to confirm each purchase through Face ID or a fingerprint scan. Payment tokens keep card details hidden.

OpenAI’s wallet is a pivot from the in-chat checkout function it walked back earlier this year as other AI platforms make headway with agentic checkout.

Agents from Anthropic, Meta and xAI can already make purchases, and Perplexity has the Instant Buy function, per The Decoder. 

But those providers don’t have wallets of their own—they work in partnership with wallets like Stripe’s Link.

Implications for payment providers: AI-driven commerce is slowly gaining traction. US AI-driven retail ecommerce sales will total $43.37 billion in 2026, or 3.2% of all retail ecommerce, per our forecast. By 2030, sales will climb to $288.79 billion (15.8%).

ChatGPT has tried Instant Checkout and third-party plug-ins for payments, but its latest wallet’s features make it more likely to have sticking power. For one, the wallet sends tokenized card payments through systems merchants already run, which removes the friction that stalled its previous stabs at payment solutions. 

Visa, Mastercard, and American Express also walk away with wins as the rails supporting this wallet. Agents could have been built around alternative payment methods like pay by bank that are cheaper for merchants; instead, agentic commerce will flow through traditional card networks.

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