OpenAI’s Shopping U-Turn Could Complicate Enterprise Playbook

OpenAI’s abrupt shopping pullback earlier this month didn’t just raise questions about its decision-making. It also affected several commerce and payments firms, including PayPal and Etsy, that have put in work to help the ChatGPT maker expand the high-profile shopping venture and are now in limbo as it sorts out what’s next.

And in the case of PayPal, it had also announced spending money on OpenAI’s technology as part of joining forces with the company for its ChatGPT checkout feature. PayPal’s commitment to be a customer of OpenAI remains in place, even though PayPal won’t get the benefits it initially envisioned from the shopping launch, according to a person briefed on the talks.