Emily Mary
Partner
Imagine browsing multiple online stores and completing your purchase through a single, unified checkout. That’s the idea behind OpenAI’s new “Universal Cart” — a seamless shopping flow designed to simplify the entire e-commerce experience. It offers a glimpse into the next evolution of online retail — one where convenience, intelligence, and integration come together effortlessly.
There are moments in time when technology evolves so rapidly that we can almost sense the ground shifting beneath us. Right now, e-commerce is standing in the middle of one such transformation.
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Over the past year, we at Novara have been closely observing and exploring how agentic commerce — powered by AI-driven assistants — is reshaping the way customers shop. We’ve seen intelligent agents enter the buying journey, influencing decisions, and simplifying the path to purchase.
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Now, a new breakthrough is emerging that could accelerate this shift even further: the Universal Cart.
It’s a technology that allows users to discover products across multiple webshops, add them all to one unified cart, and complete their purchase — all within a single conversational interface. No redirects, no multiple tabs, no friction.
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Everything happens inside the dialogue with an AI agent — for instance, within ChatGPT itself. And fittingly, it’s OpenAI leading this innovation, pushing us closer to a seamless, intelligent future of online commerce.
All your favorite stores, one unified checkout experience.
You know the feeling.
It’s Sunday afternoon, and you realize you’re running low on a few essentials — your favorite South American coffee beans, that eco-friendly detergent without enzymes, the moisturizer you always get from Matas. Oh, and those tennis socks you’ve been meaning to replace. Maybe even a new set of bed linens.
Before you know it, that means five different webshops.
Five separate logins.
Five checkout flows — each asking for your card, Face ID, and yet another password. What should have been a simple shopping session quickly turns into a mini project.
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The same frustration appears when booking a trip — juggling tabs for flights, hotels, trains, and local experiences. Or when piecing together a new hobby setup — like building your own bike, PC, or home barista corner from parts across different sites.
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We’ve grown used to this fragmented way of shopping — each brand living in its own little digital island with separate baskets and checkout systems. But that wall is finally beginning to fall.
With OpenAI’s Instant Checkout, the first step toward a universal cart is here.
In collaboration with Etsy, Stripe, and Shopify, OpenAI is testing an AI-powered purchasing experience that lets you:
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Search across multiple stores — not just within one site, but the entire web.
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Add everything to one unified basket — whether it’s sneakers from Zalando, a book from Saxo, or a lamp from IKEA.
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Complete your purchase in one seamless checkout — directly within ChatGPT (or its upcoming browser, ChatGPT Atlas), without endless logins or complex payment flows.
Shopping is becoming truly conversational. Within ChatGPT, you can simply describe what you’re looking for, and the AI adds products to a universal cart through integrations with Shopify and Stripe. While it currently supports one item at a time, multi-item carts are already in development — bringing us closer to a future where shopping across multiple stores happens in one seamless chat.
How It Works: The Universal Cart
It may sound almost magical, but the concept behind the universal cart is surprisingly tangible. Let’s take a closer look at how it actually works.
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OpenAI is experimenting with a system that allows products with a Shopify ID to be added to a single cart — across all Shopify-powered stores. This is made possible through Shopify’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), which lets the AI search vast product catalogs and instantly pull details like price, stock levels, and delivery options.
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But the technology isn’t limited to Shopify. The universal cart also supports third-party integrations, meaning you’re not tied to one ecosystem. As long as your AI agent has access to basic product data — such as SKU, price, quantity, and URL — it can automatically add items to your cart. This is exactly why we at Vertica emphasize maintaining clean, accurate schema markup data; it ensures AI tools can easily access the right information about your products, no matter what platform you’re using.
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In short, ChatGPT can now help you browse and compare items across multiple online stores and gather them into one universal cart. While Shopify users still enjoy a small advantage thanks to their unified product IDs, any business with structured product data and MCP implemented is ready to step into this new era of AI-driven commerce.
Check Out How Checkout Is Changing
One of the biggest hurdles in turning the universal cart into an e-commerce standard has been building a secure and reliable checkout process. But that challenge is now being solved — fast.
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With OpenAI’s Instant Checkout, users can complete purchases directly within ChatGPT, currently powered by Stripe, with Shopify’s checkout soon to follow. Meanwhile, leading players in the payments industry are closing the remaining gaps:
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VISA has introduced the Trusted Agent Protocol (TAP), allowing AI agents to make secure purchases on behalf of users.
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OpenAI and Stripe have launched the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), an open standard for safe transactions between AI agents and businesses.
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Google has joined with its Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), defining how AI systems are verified and authorized for payments.
Together, these initiatives are laying the foundation for a future where buying through AI becomes as natural — and as safe — as shopping on any trusted e-commerce platform today.
Novara’s Take: What This Means for Your Business
At Novara, we see the Universal Cart as a defining step toward the future of agentic and conversational commerce — where shopping becomes more intelligent, seamless, and AI-driven.
We’re entering a world where brands must maintain their own digital ecosystems while also existing within an ever-expanding network of AI-powered shopping experiences. This shift opens new opportunities but also brings new responsibilities for e-commerce businesses.
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Findability becomes everything.
If your product data isn’t optimized for AI search, your brand risks being invisible. AI agents don’t just compare price or delivery time — they evaluate relevance. They rely on structured, well-organized data to understand your products and recommend them accurately. Without it, you simply won’t be found.
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Your brand lives inside the AI conversation.
When shoppers no longer visit your website but instead interact with your products through an AI chat, your brand must speak through data, storytelling, and context. It’s not your homepage doing the selling anymore — it’s what ChatGPT, Claude, and other agents say about you.
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From clicks to conversations.
We’re moving from fragmented, manual shopping flows to a single, intuitive dialogue. As AI takes care of the technicalities — payments, security, and compliance — what truly matters is how your brand shows up in that conversation. The future of commerce is not about more clicks — it’s about more meaningful connections.
Frictionless Shopping — Possible, If We Let It Be
If OpenAI succeeds with its experiments, we could be witnessing the beginning of a new era in e-commerce — one where chat becomes the global storefront, AI agents act as personal shopping assistants, and checkout across multiple webshops is as effortless as ordering a pizza.
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But even with all the technological progress, one big question remains: Will consumers actually trust it?
For this vision to take hold, users must believe that AI agents can reliably find what they want — and feel safe giving them access to personal data, logins, and even payment details. And that’s no small leap. In a recent U.S. study, two-thirds of respondents said “no thanks” to letting AI agents make purchases on their behalf, citing trust and control as the main concerns.
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This reveals a crucial behavioral gap that must close before agentic commerce and the universal cart can truly take off. Yet, history shows that skepticism fades as technology proves itself — think of how hesitant we once were with MobilePay, Apple Pay, or even Face ID.
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At Novara, we believe adoption will grow through human-in-the-loop experiences — where AI handles discovery and suggestions, but the final approval always comes from the user. Trust will come with transparency and time.
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And as this new era of commerce unfolds, it’s clear that brands who learn to speak the language of AI-driven conversations — while staying human at the core — will be the ones that thrive.