I’m thinking of popping to Nice, France for the Christmas break this year. We’ve done Christmas in Dubai for the last couple of years and whilst I love the juxtaposition of heat from my previous 28 Christmas’ in England, I would like it to be a little more ‘festive’.
[BTW, I’m adding a new section to this newsletter, please help me at the bottom of this one]
If you haven’t been to Nice, it’s awesome. Right on the riviera, 10 minutes from Monaco, 45 minutes from Italy and an hour to some of the best ski resorts in Europe.
Anyway, last week, I planned my entire Nice trip using ChatGPT.
Flights, hotels, restaurants, activities. The whole thing.
If ChatGPT had let me book everything directly in the chat, I would have. Why wouldn't I? It's faster, removes friction, and I didn't have to compare ten different tabs.
Well, now they've launched that exact feature.
And if you're a business owner, this changes everything.
The Shift:
OpenAI just rolled out Instant Checkout. You can now research, compare, and buy products without ever leaving ChatGPT.
No Google. No brand websites. Just: ask AI what to buy, see the results, tap "Buy," and you're done.
Here's the new customer journey:
"What's the best CRM for a $2M agency?"
ChatGPT surfaces products based on relevance (no ads, no sponsored results yet)
Customer sees a fit and taps "Buy"
Payment processed through Stripe in seconds
Your beautiful website? Bypassed entirely. Your relevance is the #1 source now.
Why This Matters:
For the first time in internet history, customers won't need to browse websites to make purchase decisions.
They'll ask AI. And AI will decide which businesses to show them.
If your business isn't showing up in those AI results, you literally won't exist in your customer's decision-making process.
The question isn't "Will this affect my business?"
It's "How long until my competitors figure this out before I do?"
What's Changing Right Now:
OpenAI also launched:
Pulse - Real-time web search integrated into ChatGPT. Breaking news, stock prices, product launches - all surfaced instantly in AI conversations.
Sora 2 - Text-to-video tool that lets anyone generate high-quality marketing video in minutes. What used to take production teams weeks now takes minutes.
These aren't just features. They're moves in a much bigger game.
OpenAI knows they have a narrow window to dominate how people search, create, and buy online before Google and Meta catch up.
That's why they're shipping at this pace.
The Reality:
Most businesses have no idea how to optimize for AI search.
They're still playing the old SEO game while the entire search landscape is being rebuilt underneath them.
Your customers are making decisions inside AI platforms right now.
If you're not creating content that AI parsers can read and cite, you're invisible to the fastest-growing discovery channel in history.
The Bottom Line:
We're operating at a new pace now.
The companies that win in the next 5-10 years will be those who took these updates seriously and adapted early.
This is your moment to meet customers where they are - before your competitors do.
The window is open. But it won't stay that way.
[Thanks for helping me! I want to start answering some of your challenging business questions each week in this newsletter. To start with, just reply to this email with your question and I’ll pick the best ones to answer for next week.]
– Freddie
P.S. I'm building something specifically for this shift. If you want early access to tools that restructure your content for AI search automatically, reply with "AI" and I'll add you to the list.