Back in college, my beloved LED star string lights from Ikea made my dorm room a total vibe. When guests left, those lights were all they could talk about. However, Ikea stopped selling those specific lights by the time mine died (for good).
I searched Google and Amazon for similar lights for a couple of years before letting them go, bummed that these lights I loved would be just a blast from the past.
My curiosity was sparked when OpenAI announced new shopping features for ChatGPT search on Monday. You can now search and compare product options and purchase items through the ChatGPT search interface.
Could ChatGPT really make my online shopping experience better? Learn how the new shopping features in ChatGPT search work and see how I used them to search for my long-lost favorite lights.
Read more: ChatGPT Search Improves Its Shopping Experience
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
Who can use ChatGPT’s new shopping features?
Anyone can use the new shopping results in ChatGPT search. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a free or paid user. It will even work if you’re not signed in to a ChatGPT account.
If you do happen to log in, ChatGPT search remembers your history, and the service will tailor your shopping results to create personalized recommendations for you the more you use it. But to test the hype, I didn’t use a login.
Read more: ChatGPT Plus Is Free for College Students Right Now. Here’s What You Get
Shopping
We’re experimenting with making shopping simpler and faster to find, compare, and buy products in ChatGPT.
✅ Improved product results
✅ Visual product details, pricing, and reviews
✅ Direct links to buy
Product results are chosen independently and are not ads.… pic.twitter.com/PkZwsTxJUj— OpenAI (@OpenAI) April 28, 2025
How do the new ChatGPT shopping features work?
When you enter a prompt into ChatGPT that seems to be related to shopping — such as, “Where can I buy Beats noise-canceling headphones?” or, “What are the top-rated robot vacuums?” — you may see integrated shopping results in ChatGPT’s response.
Along with product descriptions, pricing and links to retailers for purchase, ChatGPT will also provide personalized product picks, visual product information and product reviews.
The shopping features in ChatGPT are currently limited to electronics, home goods, fashion and beauty products, but OpenAI plans to expand those shopping queries into more categories.
Product listings in ChatGPT search are not sponsored, and OpenAI does not currently receive any revenue from the products people buy through ChatGPT.
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How I tested ChatGPT’s new shopping features
I started with a straightforward prompt to make things simple and accurate. I didn’t want to give ChatGPT Search any room for hallucinations or the opportunity to let me down.
Here’s what I typed: “Find me an affordable handheld vacuum that’s lightweight.” I wasn’t prepared for what happened next, but I was thoroughly pleased with it.
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After a couple of seconds of scouring the internet, ChatGPT provided me with shopping options like you would get on Google and a curated list of its top picks with short reviews. Sources were listed at the end of the results if I wanted to do a deeper dive.
When you see something you like, once you click on the product, ChatGPT provides you with where to buy it and a short description. I was low-key impressed by this initial test.
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Finding my beloved LED star sting lights
Now that I knew what ChatGPT could do for shopping results, I had to know if the new shopping feature could finally find those lights I’d been searching for.
I typed in this prompt: “Find me a string of LED star lights that change colors like the ones from Ikea years ago.”
Cue the nostalgia!
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The first option in ChatGPT’s shopping results brought back a rush of memories. After multiple failed search attempts on Google and Amazon, ChatGPT presented it to me nicely packaged.
I was so shocked that I didn’t even think about tariffs, the price or anything else. I was ecstatic that OpenAI’s shopping feature not only found what I had been searching for but also made the experience easy.
I loved not having to scroll through pages and pages of false leads to find what I wanted. ChatGPT search gave me the result I wanted in a precise way. If you have a favorite product you just can’t find anywhere, you might want to try ChatGPT shopping too.