With this peak season approaching, OpenAI wants to do its part to help people find the products they need quickly and easily, and at the same time attract more users—because it's not all about Christmas charity. To this end, they've launched ChatGPT Shopping Research, an experience that researches, reviews sources, and leverages chat history to create a personalized shopping guide. This new feature has already begun rolling out on both mobile devices and the web for users registered on the Free, Go, Plus, and Pro plans. OpenAI has also announced that it will offer almost unlimited access for all plans during the holiday season, so everyone can optimize their shopping with ChatGPT Shopping Research. Furthermore, ChatGPT Pulse, the feature available on the Pro plan that delivers a selection of updates each morning based on your interests, will also be able to display personalized shopping guides. Advanced Search for Complex Shopping Research To develop this new feature, OpenAI built upon a version of GPT-5 mini and trained it with reinforcement learning specifically for shopping tasks. “We trained it to read trustworthy websites, cite reliable sources, and synthesize information from various sources to generate high-quality product research. Furthermore, we designed it to be an interactive experience that can update and refine its research in real time, incorporating new constraints and adjusting to user feedback on product preferences, resulting in a response that feels well-researched and personalized,” explains OpenAI. The Shopping Research feature is designed to facilitate finding detailed product information, making comparisons, discovering items that meet specific needs, or finding deals. While the standard ChatGPT mode would suffice for a simple shopping query, this new option opens up new opportunities for enhanced search. “Shopping Research is designed for more in-depth decision-making.” Turn product discovery into a conversation: ask smart questions to understand your interests, extract accurate and up-to-date information from high-quality sources, and offer options to refine the results. It works especially well in categories with a high level of detail, such as electronics, beauty, home and garden, kitchen and appliances, and sports and outdoor activities. How ChatGPT Shopping Research Works To start using it, open the tools menu located in the prompt bar and select the "shopping research" option. You can also submit your query without selecting the tool, and ChatGPT will offer to use it after analyzing your request. During the research, ChatGPT will actively ask you questions to better understand your needs and circumstances (budget, who the product is for, what features you value, etc.). You can also continue chatting with the tool to give it your own instructions. Furthermore, if you have ChatGPT's memory enabled, the AI ​​will use it to further personalize the search. In the background, ChatGPT will search the web for up-to-date information (price, availability, reviews, specifications, and images) and offer you various options in a visual product sheet format. You can interact with the sheets and select "Not interested" or "More like this" to filter future results. Additionally, swiping right approves the product, while swiping left dismisses it, similar to a dating app. You can also indicate why you weren't convinced by the suggestion. After making these adjustments, ChatGPT will think for a few minutes and then provide you with a personalized buying guide. This guide will summarize the best products and include key information such as their differences, advantages, disadvantages, and details of trusted retailers. For now, if you're interested in any of ChatGPT's suggestions, you'll need to visit the seller's website to purchase it yourself. OpenAI's future plans include allowing users to complete purchases directly through the platform at participating retailers offering Instant Checkout. However, this feature is currently only available in the United States, so the rest of the world will have to wait to complete a purchase directly on ChatGPT.