OpenAI launches ChatGPT shopping research tool to prepare for holiday shopping

OpenAI has launched a free artificial intelligence shopping research tool that is said to generate personalized shopping guides for ChatGPT users during the holiday season. While ChatGPT has always been able to answer shopping-related questions, OpenAI says they trained a new version of the GPT-5 mini model that is able to ask explicit questions and extract answers from reviews posted by sites that the company deems to be of higher quality. OpenAI notes that, for example, users' shared experiences on Reddit may be more trustworthy than reviews on paid marketing content or product pages. An OpenAI representative told reporters before the launch that the tool does not prioritize specific sites when referencing product links. The new tool is a departure from the regular text interactions users are accustomed to. Users can use a dedicated "shopping research" button in the chat interface and describe their needs with instructions such as "help me find a sofa for a small apartment" or "I need to pick a gift for my art-loving 4-year-old niece".