I hate shopping. ChatGPT is already helping me in ways Google never did

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Google executive Sissie Hsiao testified yesterday in the company’s antitrust trial that while ChatGPT has stolen market share from Google search queries, searches with “commercial intent”— like shopping—haven’t yet been significantly affected. But in notes from an October 2024 meeting presented in court, Google’s ad chief, Vidhya Srinivasan, was cited as saying that the “writing is on the wall” and Hsiao said Srinivasan believes it is “inevitable” that ChatGPT and other chatbots will eventually replace standard Google searches for many people. 

I heartily agree. If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to share my own personal search story: People say women love to shop. I couldn’t relate less. I’ve barely set foot in a brick-and-mortar store for clothes, shoes, or accessories in nearly a decade. Instead, I’ve relied almost entirely on subscription boxes like Stitch Fix—and a lot of good old-fashioned Googling.

But that only gets me so far. Not only do I lack a passion for fashion, but I also typically feel like a styling failure. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve dreamed of having Tan France from Queer Eye as my personal stylist. And I can’t even tell you how often I’ve fallen into a black hole of Google searches, desperately trying to figure out what goes with what—only to close the tabs in frustration. 

Stuck at the search bar

I’m ready to buy—I’m just stuck at the search bar. Google, with its endless link scroll, is simply overwhelming for the shopping-averse. But it turns out that OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which debuted ChatGPT Search in October 2024, helps in ways that Google never could. 

ChatGPT no longer relies on a static corpus of training data, with limited knowledge beyond 2023. Nowadays, ChatGPT offers real-time data courtesy of a blend of Microsoft’s Bing search engine (with which it has an integration) and OpenAI’s own web crawlers that scrape publicly available web pages (except those that block it via robots.txt) and update OpenAI’s internal knowledge base.

Here’s an example: Last week, I received a subscription box from Short Story, a Stitch Fix-like service for petites. When I couldn’t figure out how to style the six items I received, I turned to ChatGPT. Explaining my predicament, I got very specific, including my height, weight, and age. I did not include any photos of myself. 

“Could I wear the black Souri blazer I got with the Brynn contrast border wrap skirt?” I asked. 

Not only did ChatGPT reply in the affirmative and offer styling tips, it followed up by asking, “Would you like me to pull some top options that would work with this combo?” When I said yes, it served up links to several options from specific brands. 

Without any prompting, it followed up by asking if I would like assistance in selecting accessories or footwear to complement the outfit. Would I? Only Tan France would be better! 

The next day, I went back to ChatGPT to continue the conversation, turning to my recent struggle to camouflage my midlife stomach in an era of body-conscious tanks and tops. Again, not only did I get tips on everything from blouse shapes to shirt-tuck hacks, but I got a holy grail follow-up:

“Would you like me to send over a few real product links with visuals?” ChatGPT wrote. “I can pull some options under $75 or from brands you like (let me know if you have preferences like J.Crew, Quince, Madewell, etc).”

Thrilled, I threw a Hail Mary: “Do you have any in petite sizes?” Up came five more options. Inwardly cheering, I clicked through all the links, and there they were—actual, helpful items of clothing (yes, in petite sizes) that I would never have thought of or looked for. Success!

Building search Nirvana

So far it's unclear whether brands are partnering with OpenAI to ensure their products are surfaced more prominently in ChatGPT search results, which would raise serious transparency and trust concerns—currently users expect ChatGPT to give them the best, most relevant answers, not ads dressed up as answers. My sense is not yet—although the Financial Times recently reported on OpenAI's plans to ultimately introduce an advertising model. And, aside from explicit commercial relationships with OpenAI, many brands are trying to figure out if there's a way to influence ChatGPT's answers so that their products are more likely to get mentioned in outputs, in much the same way companies figured out ways to potentially game Google's search algorithm through "SEO optimization" methods.

Apparently, OpenAI has big plans for building on the kind of search Nirvana I experienced, and it sounds like it’s even looking to Google to help it get there. On Tuesday, Nick Turley, OpenAI’s head of product, testified at the Google trial saying that improving OpenAI’s search offering is crucial for the company, which it says requires Google’s search technology, but that Google has declined to work with OpenAI (I can’t imagine why). 

According to Bloomberg, during his testimony, Turley did not talk directly about Microsoft but referred to a search relationship with “Provider No. 1.” Turley said that OpenAI had “significant quality issues” with the search information from that provider—presumably Bing. Apparently in August, OpenAI reached out to Google about whether they could reach an agreement to gain access to the search giant’s index, Turley said, but it declined. 

Perhaps Google wants to do what OpenAI is doing with its AI search, but so far, from my own experiments, it seems to be lagging. In trying Google’s AI mode, I had to ask specifically for product links, and there was no follow up to keep the conversation going or offer other options I might not have thought of. Perplexity, too, isn’t quite there yet either—in a similar search, it didn’t offer product photos or easy-to-read brand descriptions. It fussed quite a bit with unnecessary tables and bullet points, rather than ChatGPT’s friendly, personal stylist vibe. 

Whatever the results of Google’s antitrust trial, and whether or not ChatGPT winds up being the big winner in AI shopping, it’s clear that we are entering a new era—and every brand is going to need to pay attention. Keep in mind, my experience wasn’t about an AI agent doing the purchasing for me. It was simply about discovering—in a natural, conversational way—what was always there, but I could never find in the deep blue sea of Google links. Hallelujah. 

And with that, here’s the rest of the AI news.

Sharon Goldman
sharon.goldman@fortune.com
@sharongoldman

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com