- A new ChatGPT shopping experience is launching for all users
- Early users have expressed displeasure with the new recommendations
- Comparisons are being drawn to Corey Doctrow’s “enshittification” concept
According to a new Reddit thread, some users are not happy with the new shopping features that are being integrated into ChatGPT and are rolling out now.
The new features make it easy to search for and buy consumer products online using ChatGPT’s search feature combined with its rich natural-language prompts.
Reddit user ‘Kjfitz’, who started the thread, titled it, “the enshittification has arrived” in reference to the infamous neologism championed by Cory Doctrow in a 2022 essay about Amazon, which is generally used to describe how commercial pressures cause the experience of using platforms like Amazon, Google, and Facebook to gradually deteriorate over time as more monetization features are added.
“I asked ChatGPT about the impact of the current tariffs on inventories over the next few months. It returned a long list of links to toiletries I might want to buy”, said Kjfitz. “I asked it why it did that. It replied:
“As of April 28, 2025, OpenAI introduced new shopping features to ChatGPT, enhancing its capabilities to provide product recommendations complete with images, reviews, and direct purchase links. These features are available to all users, including those on Free, Plus, and Pro tiers, and even to users not logged in. The recommendations are generated organically, without paid advertisements or commission-based incentives, relying instead on structured metadata from third-party sources such as pricing, product descriptions, and reviews.
“This update aims to offer a more personalized and streamlined shopping experience directly within the ChatGPT interface, allowing users to explore products across various categories like fashion, beauty, electronics, and home goods. If you have any specific preferences or need tailored recommendations, feel free to let me know!”
Other Reddit users were quick to express their displeasure with the new features. In reference to the notice that “The recommendations are generated organically, without paid advertisements or commission-based incentives” User ‘crystallin’ commented, “I give it less than six months before that changes.”
“Good God. Imagine the people using ChatGPT for mental health advice and it starts saying “you know what’ll fix your relationship with your kids? Switching to Allstate”, said Reddit user ‘rosencranberry’.
A gradual deterioration
In 2024, the Macquarie Dictionary, the national dictionary of Australia, picked “enshittification” as its word of the year, describing it as “the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.”
It should be noted that currently there are no paid adverts or sponsored links attached to any of the shopping features in ChatGPT; however there’s nothing to stop these being added in the future.
We’re still in the early days of shopping features being added to chatbots, and the AI search engine Perplexity has already made some inroads into adding shopping features, but this is the first time e-commerce features have been added to ChatGPT search.
“We’ll continue to bring merchants along our journeys as we quickly learn and iterate”, said OpenAI commenting on the launch of the new features yesterday.
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