October 6th, 2025: ChatGPT Is Actually The Ultimate In Influencer-Driven Commerce and OpenAI x Stripe Agentic Commerce Protocol Has Makings of Silicon Valley Catfight
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It’s October 6, 2025 and this is the Watson Weekly - your essential eCommerce Digest!
Today on our show:
ChatGPT Is Actually The Ultimate In Influencer-Driven Commerce
OpenAI x Stripe Agentic Commerce Protocol Has Makings of Silicon Valley Catfight
- and finally, The Investor Minute which contains 5 items this week from the world of venture capital, acquisitions, and IPOs.
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To hear new episodes of the show every Monday morning, subscribe now at rmwcommerce.com/watsonweekly and wherever you get your podcasts.
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BUT FIRST in our shopping cart full of news….
ChatGPT Is Actually The Ultimate In Influencer-Driven Commerce
You don't have to believe in "fully autonomous agentic" to believe the future will be influenced by LLMs and agents. You really just need to believe that users spend time there, that users trust the output, and that users will make decisions based on the results.
In this sense, ChatGPT isn't a marketplace at all. It's a trusted colleague whose entire job it is to influence you. One that happens to past the Turing Test with flying colors.
In another sense, it's a marketplace like they all are -- just surfacing brands that are good enough to scheme, scam, or (increasingly) buy their way into the results.
Think about this -- we have known about the power of reviews in commerce for decades now. Influencer-driven commerce has similarly seen a rise since the advent of Youtube + more recently Tiktok. Authenticity is appreciated.
The marketplace side of ChatGPT? It's a little meh. Worse than Amazon, Probably even worse than Google's many previous checkout attempts.
Why? We quite simply know the formula for a great marketplace: price, selection, and logistics. As a result, ChatGPT is not threatening in my view the scaled marketplaces.
For the things you need soon, the value of the marketplace flywheel is not diminished by ChatGPT, it only increases -- even if you use ChatGPT to influence what you buy, it will likely influence "where" you buy less than you might think.
Your "wants" are likely another matter entirely.
Who is first on the chopping block, however? Bad retail, in my mind.
Also, I don't feel the smallest brands will benefit that much. Why? No trust signals. People want "the top", "the best", "the fastest". The answer for our ultimate influencer (ChatGPT) will be "according to what criteria? using what data?"
For that, it will seek proof, which of course it may not find.
As a result, in the short-term I expect it will be used a medium to large-sized brand discovery tool which will likely in the short-term be purchased on marketplaces.
For small brands? Once you get traction it could certainly fan the flames of your flywheel. Don't expect it to solve your "cold start" problem however, because....
* You can't get social proof without purchases, and ...
* you can't get purchases without social proof.
People want to buy what works. Strap in, we are only setting the field for agentic commerce. The real battles are still many innings away, and cannot yet be predicted.
But here's what you already know: People buy from those they know, like and trust. ChatGPT could help you get known if there is already a reason to trust you, but you better give it good reasons to trust you, else no consumers will have a real reason to like and choose you. Which doesn't mean they will buy "from you".
They might still just buy the dupe. Because we're fickle that way.
So yeah, we don't know anything yet.
>> closer
[References:]
OpenAI x Stripe Agentic Commerce Protocol Has Makings of Silicon Valley Catfight
If there is one thing you notice about the two recent announcements in the last couple of months from:
Stripe x OpenAI: Agentic Commerce Protocol
Google: Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)
... if you pull together the list of partners on both sides, you notice that Paypal is on one side (Google) and Stripe is on the other side (ChatGPT). That puts the two major payment competitors on opposite sides of the fence.
The gold standard for commerce is really the reach of the payment network and who owns the wallet. The wallet is always going to be the commerce "last mile" from a payments point of view, which is one of the two major pillars of commerce along with logistics (which is kind of out of scope for this exercise at the moment).
Previously, the largest reach for any payment provider is with scaled marketplaces (Uber, Etsy, eBay, AirBnB, Amazon, etc etc) and so these were the most valuable partners (witness Paypal was birthed on the back of eBay). With LLMs, we have a new distribution game to win, with new bets to be made.
OpenAI is the most promising and scaled challenger brand in this race, far outpacing others having essentially kickstarted the whole space. It makes sense that Stripe would partner with OpenAI since they are the challenger versus the traditional payment networks and scaled incumbent payment networks like Paypal.
Curious note: Etsy is on the list of Google AP2 and Stripe ACP. In fact, one of the only companies on both lists. I think this fact will change as we go forward because if you are a middleman (marketplace or eCommerce platform) in the long-term you don't want to be only one of these, you will want to be on both.
What about the platforms? As of today's announcement, there are a lot of people in the Stripe camp (including Shopify who was named by OpenAI right with Etsy), however you see other announcements from most of the other major players of any scale (commercetools, Big/Commerce, Woo).
Interestingly, I haven't yet seen a Stripe announcement from Salesforce or Adobe - just Google. Could be I missed it.
Long-term? I don't expect commerce platforms to be able to pick sides.
Perhaps I'll be wrong, but the logic doesn't make sense for me that even a Stripe-powered Shopify would shut out Google Gemini or the AP2 protocol long-term. Suffice to say that I think Shopify's partnership with programs like Amazon Buy With Prime shows the Shopify long-term is willing to bend its own rules even if it's called that same partner "evil empire" in the past.
Long term I do feel platforms will be pushed into both camps by their merchants. And yes, I do believe these are the only camps that matter. Payment wallets, however, may be forced to pick sides due to Google/Paypal and Stripe/OpenAI already being aligned.
But where does this leave Shop Pay? That my friends will be a question for another post.
>> closer
[References:]
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ecommercestrategyconsulting_openai-x-stripe-agentic-commerce-protocol-activity-7379119156488749056-3MI9
In a quote actually attributed to Vladimir Lenin, there are weeks where decades happen and it appears that we just had one of those weeks. The OpenAI and Stripe announcement to collaborate with Etsy and Shopify on Instant Checkout within ChatGPT created a lot of new kings at the same time.
First of all, Etsy for their relevance and inclusion. Second, it really elevates Stripe to the center of Commerce in this new world, and pulled along for the ride as one of the first big partners is Shopify.
What is not yet clear to me is the role that Shop Pay is playing in the whole equation. Clearly, the Shopify checkout will be surface which will drag along Shop Pay. But this will also elevate non-Shop Pay Stripe checkout protocol called Stripe Link as well.
Regardless of your stance on AI, you there is a lot of purchase influence coming from ChatGPT as the leader in the space coming soon. And some percentage of that will purchase directly in ChatGPT.
And even if they don’t, this still increases OpenAI’s ability to influence you via ChatGPT’s new product specification which allows you to what Scot Wingo calls content and context data into the ChatGPT engine for consideration by their LLM.
Decades definitely just happened and we will keep paying attention to it here on the Watson Weekly.
It’s That Time Friends, for our Investor Minute. We have 5 items on the menu today.
First
Backyard Game CROSSNET Acquired By Vivere
CROSSNET, an outdoor backyard game brand, has been acquired by Canadian outdoor living platform, Vivere Limited, for an undisclosed amount.
Second
Frasers Group Acquires eBuyer Out of Administration
Frasers Group has acquired a UK technology retailer, eBuyer, out of administration. Fraser Group is a British retail conglomerate that owns a portfolio of brands, including Sports Direct, House of Fraser, and Flannels.
Link: https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2025/08/frasers-group-ebuyer/
Third
Gildan To Acquire HanesBrands
Apparel brand Gildan Activewear will acquire Hanesbrands. The merger transaction implies an equity value of approximately $2.2 billion and an enterprise value of approximately $4.4 billion for HanesBrands.
Link: https://gildancorp.com/en/media/news/gildan-and-hanesbrands-agree-to-combine/
Fourth
Confido Raises $20M to Build AI Operating System for CPG Brands
Confido, an AI-powered finance and operations platform designed for the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry, has raised $20 million in Series A and Seed funding. The new funding will be used to grow engineering and customer success teams and invest in product development.
AND FINALLY …
Goodship Raises $25M in Series B Funding
Freight logistics data management platform GoodShip has announced that it has raised $25 million in Series B funding, which will be invested in product and AI development.
Link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/goodship-raises-25m-accelerate-ai-120000039.html
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Did you know that RMW Commerce has another podcast? Check out The Watson Weekend for an unfiltered and lively eCommerce chat each week with me, Rick Watson, my co-host Jess Lesesky, and an array of interesting guests and topics. All focused on eCommerce. You can find the Watson Weekend by searching for it on iTunes, Spotify, or Youtube.
That’s all for this week! Till next time Watsonians.....
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Hi, I’m Rick Watson, CEO and Founder of RMW Commerce Consulting and host of the Watson Weekly podcast - your essential eCommerce Digest.
To hear new episodes of the show every Monday morning, subscribe now at rmwcommerce.com/watsonweekly and wherever you get your podcasts.
