Shopee lands in ChatGPT as Sea and OpenAI deepen partnership

share on

twitter /
facebook /
linkedin /
- email
- telegram
- whatsapp
- wechat
- pinterest
- line
- snapchat
- reddit

Sea and OpenAI are deepening their strategic partnership, with plans to drive artificial intelligence (AI) adoption across Southeast Asia and Brazil through new eCommerce, business and developer-focused initiatives.

As part of the collaboration, the Shopee app is now available within ChatGPT for users in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and Brazil. According to the companies, Shopee is the first eCommerce platform operating across Southeast Asia and Latin America to be integrated into ChatGPT.

The integration allows users to discover products through conversational prompts within ChatGPT. Consumers seeking gift recommendations, fashion inspiration, travel essentials or niche products can receive product suggestions from Shopee before continuing their purchase journey on the eCommerce platform.

Don't miss: OpenAI turns ChatGPT into a personal shopping assistant

The latest move builds on a relationship that began in 2025, when Sea and OpenAI collaborated on initiatives aimed at making ChatGPT more accessible through marketing promotions and ShopeeVIP membership benefits.

Under the expanded partnership, the companies will also introduce ChatGPT for Business to Shopee's seller ecosystem. The offering is designed to help merchants use AI to create product listings and marketing content, improve customer service processes and automate business operations.

Eligible sellers will be given access to ChatGPT for Business trials, alongside onboarding resources, training programmes and best-practice guides aimed at accelerating AI adoption among small and medium-sized businesses.

Beyond commerce, the partnership will also focus on expanding the use of OpenAI's coding agent Codex across Asia.

Earlier this year, Sea and OpenAI jointly launched a regional Codex Hackathon series across Asia Pacific to encourage experimentation and hands-on learning with AI tools. The series began in Singapore on 6 June and attracted more than 1,200 applications, with 40 teams shortlisted to showcase their projects.

The Singapore event was attended by David Chen, co-founder of Sea and chief product officer of Shopee, Oliver Jay, managing director for international at OpenAI, and Thibault Sottiaux, head of Codex at OpenAI.

Additional hackathons are set to take place in Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia in the coming months as both companies look to strengthen AI adoption and innovation across the region.

“Sea has always focused on using technology to improve the lives of consumers and small businesses across our markets. Our strategic partnership with OpenAI reflects a shared commitment to making AI more accessible and meaningful for the communities we serve.” said Forrest Li, chairman and CEO of Sea.

He added, “By combining OpenAI’s advanced AI capabilities with Sea’s vibrant ecosystem, we hope to deliver more intuitive AI-native experiences for consumers while enabling businesses of all sizes to use AI to grow and stay competitive in the digital economy.”

In tandem, Denise Dresser, chief revenue officer at OpenAI said. "Sea has built an extraordinary ecosystem across some of the world’s most dynamic digital markets. By bringing OpenAI’s technology into the products and services people already use, we can make AI more useful and accessible in their everyday lives."

"This partnership will help more consumers discover new AI-powered experiences, give small businesses practical tools to grow, and enable more people to put AI to work as an operating layer across the company and the broader builder ecosystem," she added.

The expanded partnership comes as OpenAI reportedly prepares a major overhaul of ChatGPT, with plans to transform the platform into a "superapp" that combines AI agents, coding tools and third-party services within a single ecosystem.

The revamp is expected to give greater prominence to Codex and partner integrations, as OpenAI looks to deepen user engagement and expand the platform's capabilities beyond conversational AI.

share on