An ad-based model misaligns an agent, incentivizing it to influence users against their own interests. Instinct is pursuing a "blanket transaction take rate," similar to Apple Pay. The agent remains free for the user, ensuring its actions are solely on their behalf, while merchants pay for the distribution.

By integrating shopping into ChatGPT, OpenAI can become a massive e-commerce engine. With a potential take rate of 15-30%, similar to Amazon or Meta, capturing just 20% of the $1.2T U.S. e-commerce market would generate tens of billions in new, high-margin revenue.

OpenAI's 4% fee for in-app purchases creates a risk for merchants. If consumers start using ChatGPT as their primary purchasing interface, it could intercept sales that originated from a brand's own marketing. A customer might see a product elsewhere, then buy it via ChatGPT, imposing a new tax on an otherwise organic conversion.

Instinct's founder aims to make the assistant free, monetizing by taking a percentage of all transactions it facilitates (e.g., travel bookings, product purchases). This model aligns value capture directly with the commercial actions users take, potentially proving more scalable than traditional SaaS fees.

Consumers will be slow to trust AI with subjective shopping decisions (e.g., buying clothes). However, they will more quickly adopt AI agents to handle the objective task of payment optimization—choosing the right card or financing—making it the first major frontier for agentic commerce.

Muse isn't just a product; it's a potential platform with three distinct revenue streams. It can charge subscriptions for power users, command premium ad rates due to high-intent signals, and take a transaction fee for facilitating purchases on partner sites like Expedia.

If users conduct multi-merchant shopping through a single AI chat interface, the platform provider (e.g., OpenAI) is positioned to handle payments for the entire transaction. This could disintermediate services like Shopify and traditional payment processors, as merchants connect inventory directly to the chat platform's marketplace.

For AI agents like Instinct to monetize shopping, they must do more than fulfill user commands for specific items. The real value, justifying high referral fees, comes from creating new purchase intent through intelligent, proactive suggestions. This shifts the agent from a simple tool to a demand-generation platform.

The 4% fee on ChatGPT's checkout isn't comparable to ad spend because it doesn't grant merchants a long-term customer relationship. With restrictions on remarketing, it's a simple transaction cost that erodes margins, not an investment in acquiring a customer with future lifetime value (LTV).