The agreement means that starting from next year, both sides of PayPal’s customer base can plug into ChatGPT, meaning PayPal users can purchase items through the AI platform, and its sellers can sell on it, with their products listed there.
As a result of the agreement, shares of the company jumped 13pc in pre-market trading.
Commenting on the new partnership, Alex Chriss the president and CEO of PayPal, said: “Hundreds of millions of people turn to ChatGPT each week for help with everyday tasks, including finding products they love, and over 400 million use PayPal to shop.
“By partnering with OpenAI, PayPal will power payments and commerce experiences that help people go from chat to checkout in just a few taps for our joint customer bases,” he said.
PayPal will also support OpenAI Instant Checkout through the delegated payments Application Programming Interface (API), managing payment processing for card payments, it said.
For the users who sell products on PayPal, the partnership will allow small businesses as well as popular retail brands across apparel, fashion, beauty, home improvement, and electronics to sell through ChatGPT commerce, via PayPal.
PayPal said it will manage payment validations.
With the agreement, PayPal aims to expand its overall AI strategy with OpenAI beyond the commerce aspect by allowing the company’s more than 24,000 employees access to ChatGPT Enterprise – a business-focused version of ChatGPT that offers advanced security, and administrative tools for organisations.
For Irish employees, PayPal announced the creation of 100 new high-skilled data-science roles at its Dublin office earlier in the year, in a move that reverses a trend of job cuts in recent years.
The new roles are focused around AI which the company said will serve as a key part of PayPal’s global network.
Two rounds of job cuts in 2024 reduced the workforce by close to 300. The business employs around 1,500 people in Ireland, down from a peak of 2,000.
In the announcement in July, the company touched on their plans to innovate digital payments and how Ireland will play a role.
“As we shape the next generation of digital payments, the talent and innovation coming from Ireland will play a critical role,” said Aaron J Webster, global chief risk officer at PayPal. “We are proud to deepen our commitment to Ireland.”