Could ChatGPT Become a 'Shopping Cart'? Retail-Branded Credit Card Issuer Teams Up with OpenAI to Enable AI-Powered In-App Purchases

Consumer finance company Synchrony has announced a corporate partnership with OpenAI, enabling customers to directly use its 'retail-branded credit cards' (store cards) to purchase products within the ChatGPT chatbot.

Synchrony issues store cards for major brands such as Amazon (AMZN-US), Walmart (WMT-US), and Lowe's. The new collaboration will allow Synchrony to integrate lending, rewards, and loyalty programs into AI-native shopping and checkout experiences.

This deal represents one of the first attempts by a U.S. consumer credit provider to embed lending, payment, and rewards mechanisms directly into an AI chatbot. For OpenAI, this move could help transform ChatGPT into a broader online commerce platform.

While 'agentic commerce' has emerged as a popular concept for the next phase of online shopping, consumers currently still get redirected to brand websites to complete purchases after discovering products via AI agents.

To change this, OpenAI has already partnered with companies like Visa and Stripe to enable transactions to be completed directly within chat interfaces.

Maran Nalluswami, Synchrony’s Chief Strategy Officer, stated, 'Right now, transactions aren’t smoothly completing on platforms like OpenAI’s service.'

'We want our credit cards to be loaded in the right place if transactions are going to happen in this ecosystem, so they can be completed successfully,' he added.

However, significant work remains before the vision of 'agentic commerce' becomes a reality.

Nalluswami noted that integrating general-purpose credit cards into ChatGPT could take six to twelve months—or even longer. For retailer-specific branded cards, the timeline may be even longer, as coordination with the respective brands is required.

Consumers remain cautious about sharing credit card details with AI or allowing AI agents to complete purchases on their behalf.

Additionally, questions remain about how fees should be allocated when transactions are completed within ChatGPT.

Nalluswami said retailers, Synchrony, and OpenAI need to negotiate the business model. He also revealed that Synchrony is in talks with other AI platforms, including Claude and Gemini, aiming to embed its credit cards into these chatbots as well.