PayPal unveiled its Agentic Commerce Services on Monday, announcing Agent Ready for AI platform payments and Store Sync for product visibility through chat interfaces, positioning itself at the forefront of AI commerce alongside OpenAI’s instant checkout features in ChatGPT.

This launch represents a significant milestone in agentic commerce evolution, where AI agents handle tasks from product discovery to purchase completion within conversational interfaces. PayPal’s Store Sync is already available on PayPal.ai, with Perplexity integration planned by the end of 2025, while Agent Ready launches in early 2026.

Major Players Race to Capture AI Shopping Market

OpenAI’s ChatGPT Instant Checkout, launched September 29, enables US users to make purchases directly from Etsy sellers and over one million Shopify merchants without leaving the chat interface. The feature operates through the Agentic Commerce Protocol—an open-source standard developed jointly with Stripe that enables secure transactions between AI agents and merchants.

“We’re entering an era where AI agents aren’t just helping—they’re making decisions,” states McKinsey research projecting the US B2C retail market could reach up to $1 trillion in organized revenue from agentic commerce by 2030. Global opportunities range from $3 trillion to $5 trillion, driven by AI agents capable of detecting early purchase intent and automatically executing transactions.

Walmart announced its OpenAI partnership on October 14 to enable shopping through ChatGPT, while Salesforce declared support for the Agentic Commerce Protocol the same day. PayPal also strengthened its position through a Mastercard partnership announced October 27, integrating Agent Pay with PayPal’s digital wallet.

Consumer Adoption Accelerates Rapidly

Consumer adoption of AI shopping is surging dramatically: traffic to US retail sites from AI browsers and chat services increased 4,700% year-over-year in July 2025. Among shoppers using AI, 46% apply it “most often or every time” when shopping, with 80% expecting to rely on it even more going forward.

AI has become the second most influential source for shopping after search engines, surpassing retailer websites and even recommendations from friends and family. The agentic commerce market reached $547.3 million in 2025 and is projected to grow to $5.2 billion by 2033, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 32.5%.

However, trust remains an issue: only 46% of consumers fully trust AI recommendations, and 89% still verify information from AI before purchasing. Despite this caution, nearly 90% of shoppers claim AI helps them discover products they wouldn’t have found otherwise.