Walmart just ran a real-world test of agentic commerce, and the outcomes weren’t encouraging.
Purchases accomplished directly inside ChatGPT converted at roughly one-third the speed of transactions where users clicked through to Walmart’s site. In other words, moving checkout into the AI interface reduced conversion rates by about 66%.
Why this matters: Agentic commerce isn’t ready to interchange traditional shopping flows. For now, owned environments still convert higher, likely because they supply the context, trust and experience shoppers expect at the purpose of purchase.
In November, Walmart made around 200,000 products available through OpenAI’s Instant Checkout, allowing users to finish purchases in ChatGPT without ever visiting Walmart.com. According to Daniel Danker, Walmart’s EVP of product and design, those in-chat transactions underperformed significantly. He described the experience as “unsatisfying,” and the corporate is already pulling back.
That aligns with a broader shift. OpenAI has begun phasing out Instant Checkout in favor of merchant-controlled checkout experiences. Instead of trying to finish transactions داخل the AI interface, the model is moving toward handing off the transaction back to the retailer.
Walmart’s next move reflects that direction. The company plans to embed its own chatbot, Sparky, داخل ChatGPT, allowing users to log into their Walmart accounts, sync carts and complete purchases inside Walmart’s own system. An analogous integration is anticipated to roll out with Google Gemini.
The takeaway is simple. Discovery could also be moving into AI interfaces, but conversion still happens where brands control the experience.
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