AI shopping agents took two practical steps forward in November 2026. On November 6, Seattle startup firmly announced a $15 million Series A led by Squarepoint Capital, with J.P. Morgan Payments, Mastercard and Samsung Next taking part, to connect merchants to AI assistants and other new sales channels. Four days later, OpenAI launched Businesses in ChatGPT in beta, letting eligible US ecommerce and online-service firms run their own Business Agents inside ChatGPT. Together they show agents moving from demos toward real storefronts.
What changed
firmly builds the plumbing between stores and the places where AI now shops. Its firmly Connect product integrates with merchants so they can sell in any channel without engineering work, according to Retail Technology Innovation Hub. Alongside the funding, the company launched Ask Agent, a conversational shopping experience for merchant websites that offers natural-language product discovery from a real-time catalog, in-chat checkout and customer support. SaaSRise reports that the round brings firmly’s total funding to $20 million.
The company says the money will expand firmly Connect with merchants and across AI agents, marketplaces, social networks and shoppable advertising platforms. Co-founder and CEO Kumar Senthil put the problem plainly: “AI is quickly creating new storefronts for commerce, but merchants cannot build a new integration every time one emerges.”
OpenAI is building one of those storefronts. In Businesses in ChatGPT, companies can claim a profile and add product feeds with pricing and availability, and eligible US merchants can launch a Business Agent that answers shoppers using their own product data. Agents must get explicit user approval before purchases. For now, TNW reports, buyers are sent to the brand’s website to check out, while OpenAI works with Visa on agent payments.
Why AI shopping agents matter for businesses
For most online stores, the customer journey has been simple to picture: a shopper searches, lands on a product page, compares and buys. AI shopping agents insert a new step. An assistant may read your catalog, compare it with competitors and present a shortlist before the customer ever sees your site. In some flows, the assistant handles the conversation and the checkout as well.
That shifts what wins. Product data quality, accurate stock and pricing, clear return policies and fast, reliable checkout become the signals an agent can actually use. Polished banners and clever copy matter less to software that is matching specifications and prices. Small and mid-size brands with clean catalogs can compete on more even terms with larger players, while stores with messy data risk being skipped.
Control matters too. Investors from payments, including J.P. Morgan Payments and Mastercard, are backing infrastructure that keeps merchants connected to these channels. Brands should want the same: a say over which assistants can sell their products and on what terms, rather than being represented by whatever data an AI finds.
Most of these tools are still US-first. OpenAI’s Business Agents are limited to the US at launch. Brands in the EU, the GCC and India have time to prepare, but the groundwork, such as structured product data and a store platform that can plug into new channels, takes months to get right.
What to do now
- Audit your product catalog for complete titles, attributes, sizes, prices and stock data. Agents rely on structured fields, not marketing copy.
- Keep inventory and pricing in sync across every channel, since an agent quoting the wrong price damages trust fast.
- Claim your business profile in ChatGPT’s Business Hub if you are eligible, and set up a product feed.
- Check that your store platform can connect to new channels through feeds or APIs. Our Shopify vs WooCommerce comparison covers how the two handle integrations.
- Make checkout fast and dependable for traffic handed over from assistants, and track those referrals separately. Our ecommerce development team can help.
- Decide which AI channels you want to sell through, and set rules for pricing, promotions and returns before you sign up.