Last Fall, OpenAI made an important but understated move: third-party app integrations on ChatGPT. This lets any app or business plant itself on ChatGPT, making it easier for users to interact and transact. It reduces friction in that users aren’t bounced to another site or app to buy or book something.
Of course, that friction is what businesses want, as that’s how they get users to visit their domains to then engage and hopefully transact directly. This has been the model for online commerce for the past few decades: optimize your presence so that Google sends you traffic that converts to revenue.
Google, of course has been on a long but steady path towards keeping traffic on its domain with transactional functionality, or what’s become known as zero-click search. Now, AI Engines are executing that same principle on steroids, causing much handwringing over lost traffic among website owners.
That brings us back to OpenAI’s app integrations that let businesses plant themselves within ChatGPT. It’s sort of a “if you can’t beat them, join them” proposition to regain user engagement taken away by the very entity that’s offering help. This has unsurprisingly sparked misgivings throughout the appverse.
But for those websites, publishers, and retailers that have put aside their pride and learned to adapt to the world they now live in, they’ve jumped on ChatGPT’s app integrations. That list includes eCommerce players that have developed transactional presence on ChatGPT, including Walmart and Shopify.
The Latest Subset
The latest subset to likewise jump on this opportunity is local marketplaces. In the past few months, we’ve tracked a handful that have established their presence on ChatGPT, including transactional functionality. That list so far includes Angi, Booking.com, Doordash, Expedia, Uber and Zillow.
Let’s take a look at each..
Angi
Angi is one of the latest converts to ChatGPT. It’s app integration lets users ask home services and home improvement questions. Those questions are generally an entre to what comes next: the ability to ask to be connected to home services pros. They can also get quotes and book service.
Booking.com
Booking.com’s ChatGPT integration starts in similar ways to Angi’s, letting users ask questions such as where they should stay during an upcoming trip. This includes conversational queries that exceed what you can do on Booking.com itself (e.g., “does this hotel include free breakfast?”), then book directly.
Doordash
DoorDash’s ChatGPT integration similarly lets you do things that you can’t do on Doordash itself. this includes dialogues with ChatGPT about meal planning and corresponding grocery shopping. Users can develop a meal plan, which is then translated to a shopping list and the ability to order it on the spot.
Expedia
Expedia’s ChatGPT integrations is similar to Booking.com’s in that you can dialogue with the chatbot to zero in on travel bookings that align with your preferences and parameters. Those parameters include things like budget, hotel preferences, number of travelers and other nuances of trip planning.
Uber
Though Uber bookings are fairly straightforward on its app, sometimes a bit more complexity is involved, such as planning rides for an overseas trip. In these more nuanced situations, Uber’s ChatGPT integrations lets users explain their needs in conversational ways and then book the right rides.
Zillow
Zillow’s ChatGPT integration is well placed given the complexities of home buying. Here, a conversational interface beats traditional search formats in terms of being able to list off several parameters (school districts, public transit, park proximity, etc.). This one should gain good traction.
Fish Where the Fish Are
So there you have it. As you can tell, one of the common threads in the app integrations above is that they benefit from a conversational interface. Marketplaces apps inherently involve nuanced preferences for what a user is looking for. So the ability to state those needs in natural language is well placed.
For those reasons, many more apps will join the above list; and other segments beyond local marketplaces will flock to ChatGPT. As noted, this isn’t something these players want to do… but they’ve learned its something they have to do. It’s about fishing where the fish are, which today is on ChatGPT.
