OpenAI’s recent announcement of its partnership with Stripe in the US to enable direct transactions inside ChatGPT has major implications for how consumers shop online and the affiliate marketing channel.
The development means that users will increasingly be able to move from researching a product within an AI interface to checking out without ever leaving the platform.
This marks the emergence of what OpenAI is calling “agentic commerce.” It creates a new path to purchase where AI not only aggregates content and provides recommendations, but also completes the transaction itself. For affiliate and partner marketing, the relevance is obvious. Much of the information AI systems rely on, from reviews and comparisons to deal-finding and influencer advice, is produced by affiliates. The key question is whether this content continues to be recognised, attributed, and rewarded in an AI-driven shopping environment.
Santi Peirini, CEO, CJ, made this point directly:
“As AI tools like ChatGPT move from recommendations into direct checkout through partnerships like Stripe, affiliate’s role is expanding from tracking transactions to powering the trust layer of AI commerce. CJ’s research shows affiliate publishers account for up to 91% of the sources ChatGPT cites when answering questions about major brands’ flagship products. From reviews and comparisons to deal-finding advice, these publishers are the voices shoppers — and now AI agents — rely on to make decisions. The risk is that AI’s instant checkout flows could bypass traditional click-outs. The opportunity is that affiliate already provides the trusted content AI needs, and CJ is investing in new ways to connect those signals with monetization and attribution so publishers continue to be rewarded as AI-driven commerce scales.”
That perspective was echoed by Rebecca McNiven, Silverbean, who warned about the risks to established models while recognising the continuing importance of content:
“The biggest risk for the affiliate channel is that of zero click searches overriding the last click commission model, especially now the customer can finish their purchase journey within ChatGPT. However, whilst customers naturally want to reduce the friction with which they can make purchases, the ability to compare rich content, reviews and experiences with products remains important. This content has to come from somewhere — the big question for the affiliate channel to solve is how partners ensure this content is visible, and that they are rewarded for it. There may need to be a different attribution model for AI — when content from multiple partner sites is pulled together to influence the buying journey within an AI interface, it will become difficult to attribute conversion. Sam Altman has previously talked favourably about the affiliate model as a monetisation model for OpenAI, and has expressed his desire for trusted content (vs paid for ads). That positions affiliates really well. There’s a huge opportunity here for the channel and I’m eager to see how we capitalise on it.”
Several members saw the long-term upside if the industry adapts. Matt Gilbert, CEO, Partnerize, was clear:
“As we have stated consistently, we believe affiliate marketing is poised to become a core monetisation model for AI, mirroring its successful adaptation to past technological shifts like Google’s rise. We believe strongly that AI will be the forcing function to turn affiliate marketing into a $100bn TAM. Successfully capitalising on the opportunities created by a machine-mediated market will require our category to accelerate our innovation in critical areas like attribution, and if we collectively rise to the challenge, we will become an indispensable player in this new landscape.”
Others focused on the need for transparency and customer ownership. Ant Clements, MD, EMEA, impact.com, drew parallels with earlier embedded commerce efforts:
“The emergence of agentic commerce isn’t a surprise—it’s been bubbling away with players like custom GPTs and agents for a while. There are echoes here of other “embedded commerce” pushes from the likes of Google, Meta, and TikTok, which have been met with mixed results. We’ve learned from experiences about how quickly consumers adapt to these new purchasing pathways, and also how brands feel about losing that direct customer relationship.
The key takeaway is that consumers are still multi-touch. ChatGPT and other large language models know they can’t be the final word; that’s why they rely on and reference external sources, which are overwhelmingly human-driven content—publishers, creators, and news media. GenAI will accelerate content distribution and this is an undeniable opportunity for our channel.”
Our collective mission now is to work with OpenAI to nail down transparency: clear attribution, fair compensation for the content creators feeding the machine, and robust customer reporting for brands. And let’s not forget the crucial question for D2C brands: who owns the customer in a zero-click world? Authenticity, experience, and connection still drive purchase intent. Until a bot can actually road-test a pair of running shoes, the human content producer’s opinion remains the gold standard.”
The question of data supply and value was raised by Giles Hunt, CTO, Optimise:
“This announcement of the integration with Stripe alongside the Agentic Commerce Protocol undoubtedly unlocks new opportunities for advertisers. What will emerge over the coming weeks and months is the ‘data cost’ in providing this integration. That is to say, who will provide the data to OpenAI to enable the product comparison and provide a meaningful experience to end users. How will this conflict with attempts by Cloudflare to take a different pay-per-crawl model likely to be favoured by the content creators.”
Carla Arrindell, Global Sales & Marketing Director, Optimise, added further detail on the uncertainty facing specific affiliate models:
“The launch of Agentic Commerce is no surprise but is a significant change — one that could have real impact for SERPs-based models, not just for affiliates but also for brands’ own SERPS based marketing channels. There are still so many unknowns: how quickly brands will move to adopt this new channel and how it might perform, what it might mean for the perceived value-add of affiliate models like cashback, voucher and reward loyalty sites, or the trust and authenticity that influencers deliver. And then there’s the role of content partners who play such an important part in the discovery phase — will this proliferate new commission models. It will be fascinating to see how it unfolds.”
For programme operators, the implications are immediate. Rachel Said, Genie Goals, warned that existing traffic flows may be disrupted:
“The recent news on ChatGPT Shopping presents many unknowns for the affiliate channel. We can’t ignore the reality that affiliate marketing, in its current form, will be affected. If more consumers choose to research and check out within ChatGPT, it will likely decrease traffic to traditional affiliate sites. Some affiliate partners may adapt their models or find a way to bring the affiliate mechanism inside ChatGPT by including affiliate links in product recommendations, but how this will work in practice is not yet clear. As a channel, we need to be proactive in considering how to adapt to both the challenges and the opportunities ahead.
In my opinion, some affiliate partners currently feel less affected by the change — cashback, for example — since consumers must click a link to gain cashback (and this behaviour is already pretty ingrained in many customer journeys). However, voucher sites and content publishers may need to work harder to maintain their position (and their revenue streams) if shopping habits greatly shift. That being said, the affiliate channel has always been adaptable; new partners emerge, find niches, and seize opportunities. The pace of change may simply accelerate faster than it has before, or we may be racing to keep up. It feels like Q4 is already shaping up to be interesting with more opportunities for traffic and customers to go elsewhere, especially within the world of the last click model that most programmes rely on.”
This theme of adapting models was also stressed by James Bentley, Director of AI Strategy, Awin:
“The launch of ChatGPT’s commerce functionality with Stripe shows how AI is reshaping shopping journeys — moving from static, pre-trained data to real-time, in-the-moment integrations. For affiliate, this could unlock exciting new opportunities: delivering trusted, relevant recommendations to consumers while creating new ways for brands to monetise discovery. As AI evolves, affiliate’s strength as a transparent, performance-driven channel positions it to thrive in this new knowledge economy.”
Not all members were positive. Edwyn McFarlane, COAM, cautioned that the fundamentals remain unchanged for content creators:
“Initial thoughts on this are that nothing has changed from a content creators point of view, OpenAI still takes content, summarises it and crucially doesn’t import the affiliate links that were originally in the content itself. This is problematic. I can’t help but speculate that they’ll seek to charge content creators for this ‘benefit’ in the future.”
From a technical angle, Ian Sims, Founder, Rightlander, highlighted practical steps to protect tracking and attribution:
“If this ends up with brands/publishers deciding that voucher codes are more reliable than tracking links, then they need to create very unique, identifiable voucher codes that can be easily identified and attributed to their brand. In fact, voucher codes in my opinion need a standard naming convention that all brands follow to avoid the sort of mess we face now getting worse. IE: MS1225-100 (‘Marks & Spencers, December 2025, £100 off’).
Secondly, any affiliate or brand that doesn’t use a redirect script in tracking links and accompanying voucher code links should very much consider doing this now to control the process — I can see ChatGPT bringing up lots of old links and voucher codes inadvertently as the space gets more cluttered as it won’t know what is current/active. Especially when we talk about campaign-driven links and old culled affiliates.”
The call for resilience was repeated by Steven Brown, CEO, Moonpull:
“The move by OpenAI to tie up with Stripe is a step representative of their trajectory. In that regard it changes little. All players in the affiliate industry need to double down on making their businesses resilient to market changes, including improving their current activities including measuring well, promoting well and growing existing audiences.
Consumers are using AI for product discovery and this is a challenge. Brands want to be where consumers are. Therefore perhaps there’ll continue to be growth in curated partnerships measured by affiliate tracking, so keeping the CPA approach to a large degree.
AI does affect other models too, but well tracked and transparent partnerships will help the affiliate model.”
Finally, Helen Southgate, Chief Strategy Officer, Acceleration Partners, summed up the urgency:
“This is just the first step in AI-driven commerce. Affiliates that double down on unique, trustworthy, relevant content will win — but the industry must rethink attribution and reward models, and fast.”
This announcement underscores the centrality of affiliates to the discovery and trust layer that AI commerce depends on. Members are clear that while there are risks to attribution, the opportunity for the channel is significant if transparency and fair reward models can be established. The APMA will continue to represent its members’ interests and ensure their role is recognised as AI-driven shopping develops.
