Forrester’s Kodali, however, envisions a lot of difficulties for companies looking to use the OpenAI agent, as there would be considerable work to do. She said that the way OpenAI has designed its website, as if it owns the transaction, is something she describes as a typical approach that other companies, including Facebook and Google, have tried and failed to execute in the past.
CIOs faced with the task of trying to integrate the OpenAI data feed into their systems would have their work cut out for them. She said that OpenAI makes it sound straightforward, but she sees issues with the process of trying to fulfill transactions on the fly. “You need to have a real-time hook into the retailer’s visible pages. Then if a transaction occurs, it’s a good idea for ChatGPT to also pass that to the company’s order management system in real time.”
It remains to be seen whether OpenAI’s vision is shared by retailers. “Ultimately, every large tech company that wants to be a marketplace usually just reverts to linking back to the retailer. That would be a much easier integration for everyone, especially the retailer, because they can just hire a marketing company that wants to be an ‘answer engine optimization’ provider,” said Kodali.