Short answer. A product feed is what puts your products in ChatGPT’s shopping answers. Instant Checkout is a separate integration that lets a shopper pay without leaving the conversation: you implement OpenAI’s Agentic Checkout Spec on your own store, keep taking payments through your own payment provider, and apply to OpenAI to take part. The feed is needed either way; checkout is optional.
Two names come up together and are easy to mix: the Agentic Commerce Protocol is the set of specifications OpenAI publishes for selling through ChatGPT, and Instant Checkout is the in-conversation purchase built on it. Below is what each part asks of a merchant, in the words of OpenAI’s commerce documentation.
Two integrations, not one
OpenAI’s products specification opens with the split: product data for discovery in ChatGPT, “with separate requirements for Ads and checkout”. Discovery comes first — nine required fields per item, covered in the OpenAI product feed spec, field by field — and the same page says that checkout requires a separately enabled integration. So there are two things to build, in order: the feed, which every merchant in ChatGPT needs, and the checkout, which only merchants who want purchases inside ChatGPT add.
Who can take part
The Agentic Checkout Spec says building with the Agentic Commerce Protocol is open to all, and that Instant Checkout in ChatGPT is currently available to approved partners, with an application form. The feed has its own gate: OpenAI’s Get Started guide says onboarding product feeds is currently available to approved partners too, through the merchant application. The steps from application to a feed that stays current are in how to submit products to ChatGPT.
One more limit worth knowing before you plan for other countries: the products specification says the standard OpenAI-format upload currently targets the US.
What a merchant builds for checkout
The checkout runs on your store, not on OpenAI’s. The spec describes it as ChatGPT calling your endpoints while orders, payments and compliance stay on your existing commerce stack:
- Create a session — ChatGPT calls
POST /checkout_sessionswith the cart and buyer context, and your response carries the authoritative cart state. - Update it —
POST /checkout_sessions/{id}as the shopper changes items, shipping or discounts; every response returns the full cart. - Complete it —
POST /checkout_sessions/{id}/complete, where you confirm the order and return its identifiers. Cancel and retrieve endpoints complete the set of five. - Send order events — webhooks such as
order.createdandorder.updated, so ChatGPT stays in step with fulfilment.
The spec also asks for authenticated, signed and idempotent requests, and for the integration to pass conformance checks before it goes live. Payment stays with you: OpenAI’s key concepts page says OpenAI is not the merchant of record, and that the merchant validates the order, calculates tax, charges the payment method through its existing processor and accepts or declines the order.
What the feed needs for checkout
In the products specification, checkout is off unless you opt in. is_eligible_checkout set to true opts a product in only when search eligibility is also true and checkout is enabled for your integration; omitted, empty or false means disabled. The same section lists seller_privacy_policy and seller_tos — public URLs of your privacy policy and terms — as conditionally required for checkout, and states plainly that setting an eligibility flag does not complete checkout onboarding.
Where FeedRobin fits
FeedRobin builds the discovery half: the ChatGPT / OpenAI feed, in the format the products specification describes, from the same catalogue as your Google and Meta feeds, delivered by link or by SFTP (the differences from a Google feed are in reusing a Google Shopping feed for ChatGPT). It leaves checkout at the specification’s default, off, because checkout is an integration on your own store and payment provider that a feed cannot switch on. The free feed check reads any feed you already have; the walk-through for the feed itself is get your products into ChatGPT.
Questions merchants ask
Do I need Instant Checkout to appear in ChatGPT?
No. OpenAI’s products specification describes the feed as product data for discovery in ChatGPT, with separate requirements for Ads and for checkout. A product can be found and recommended with checkout left off, which is also the specification’s default.
Is OpenAI the merchant of record?
No. OpenAI’s key concepts page says OpenAI is not the merchant of record in the Agentic Commerce Protocol: merchants bring their own payment provider and handle payments as they do for any other digital payment.
Does setting is_eligible_checkout to true turn checkout on?
No. The specification says checkout requires a separately enabled integration and that setting an eligibility flag does not complete checkout onboarding. The flag opts a product in only when search eligibility is also true and checkout is enabled for your integration.
Which payment providers work with it?
Merchants keep their existing payment provider. For delegated payment, OpenAI’s key concepts page names Stripe’s Shared Payment Token as the first compatible implementation, with more providers to follow.
Sources
OpenAI for Developers: the Agentic Checkout Spec (who can take part, the endpoints, webhooks, payments), key concepts (merchant of record, delegated payment), Get Started (feed onboarding for approved partners), the products specification (discovery, checkout flags, the US default) and the commerce documentation.