Shopping research helps you explore and compare products in ChatGPT through an interactive discovery experience. It is designed for decisions that involve comparisons, trade-offs, or multiple constraints.
You can describe what you are looking for, and ChatGPT will guide you through options based on your needs, preferences, and budget.
Ads are separate from shopping research, and you can learn more about ads in ChatGPT here.
How to start shopping research
You can start shopping research from products already in chat.
Select one or more products and choose “Research” to compare or explore alternatives.
When shopping research starts, ChatGPT asks follow-up questions to clarify details, such as preferred brands, size ranges, or whether you care more about performance, comfort, style, or price. Responding to these follow-ups helps focus the research and improves the relevance of suggestions.
If you have ChatGPT memory turned on, shopping research can use what it already knows about you in ChatGPT to better tailor suggestions. For example, if it knows you are interested in gaming, it can factor that into laptop or accessory recommendations.
Guide the research while it runs
Once your intent is clear, ChatGPT begins a multi-step product discovery process.
It may use:
merchant product data provided through the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP)
publicly available product information
other relevant retail sources
This helps ensure results are current, complete, and useful.
Products may appear during this process as they are discovered. You can interact with them in real time by removing items, requesting similar options, or refining constraints. The search continues even if you do not interact with intermediate results
You may see products surfaced visually as they are discovered. You can compare items side by side, including attributes like price, features, reviews, and other key details. You can also refine results at any point in the process by changing constraints, excluding items, or asking for alternatives.
Read your personalized buyer’s guide
After a few minutes, shopping research returns a buyer’s guide. This is a written summary tailored to your request and preferences, usually including:
A short explanation of what to consider for this purchase in plain language, with technical specs translated into practical implications.
A small set of top picks, each with a rationale explaining why it matches your needs, key strengths, tradeoffs, and links to merchants who currently sell it.
Side‑by‑side comparisons that highlight important attributes such as price, size, core features, and any constraints you mentioned. These may appear as tables or structured sections rather than just prose.
A scrollable list of additional products that also matched your criteria so you can explore beyond the top recommendations.
You can continue the conversation after the guide is generated. For example, you can ask for only budget options, remove certain brands, or switch to a different use case such as travel instead of home use. Shopping research will adapt and may run additional targeted searches if needed.
Privacy and data use
Shopping research is designed to be transparent and helpful. Your chats are never shared with retailers. Results are organic and based on publicly available retail sites — reading product pages directly, citing sources, and avoiding low-quality or spammy sites.
Merchants who want to ensure they are available to appear in shopping research results can follow the allowlisting process here.
FAQ
I think the information I received from shopping research is incorrect or incomplete - how do I proceed?
Shopping research reads information from retailers and other public sites in real time, but it can still make mistakes. Prices, stock, and discounts change frequently and may not always match what you see on the retailer’s page.
Before you buy, you should always:
Confirm the final price, taxes, fees, and shipping costs on the retailer’s website.
Verify availability, size, and color options.
Read the retailer’s return and warranty policies if they matter to your purchase.
If shopping research returns results that seem incorrect or out of date, you can tell ChatGPT what is wrong and ask it to update the search with new constraints. You should still rely on the retailer’s site for the final word on price and availability.
In addition, some retailers block automated access to their sites.
When this happens, shopping research will either skip those sources or rely on other sites with similar products.
How can I start Shopping Research?
Shopping research can be triggered from selected products using the Research option.
Can I turn off personalization?
Yes. Shopping research may use ChatGPT memory to better tailor recommendations, but you can turn memory off or clear it at any time your personalization settings. Without memory, it will still work, just with fewer personalized touches.
Do you share my conversations with merchants?
No. Your chats stay with ChatGPT and are not shared with retailers.