Walmart pulls back from ChatGPT shopping after finding in-chat shoppers convert at a far lower rate than shoppers on its own site
Walmart's Daniel Danker called the in-chat experience "unsatisfying"; the company is moving away from it.
What's happening
According to CMSWire, in November 2025 Walmart opened up roughly 200,000 of its products so ChatGPT users could buy them through OpenAI's Instant Checkout. Danker later said that the sales conversion rate inside ChatGPT was one-third that for shoppers who clicked through to Walmart's own site. OpenAI has since phased out Instant Checkout.
Whose desk it lands on
The executive responsible for digital channels. If customers find a product through an AI assistant but still complete the purchase on your site, is your site ready to receive them?
Our view
The CX Brief's interpretation, not a claim made by the source.
As Walmart retreats from in-chat selling, the AI assistant starts the shopping journey, but the sale is still completed on the retailer's own site. In an Exploding Topics survey of 1,009 U.S. consumers, only 2.18% of AI shoppers said they completed the entire process inside the assistant. The page that receives customers arriving from chat remains where the sale actually happens.
