Ordering food used to mean opening an app and scrolling until something looked good. Three restaurant brands just decided that’s too much work and handed the job to ChatGPT.
Consumers already use ChatGPT to plan trips, research products, and figure out what to cook for dinner. Restaurants are just catching up. Starbucks and Little Caesars are using artificial intelligence company OpenAI’s ChatGPT as a new channel. Bites is basing its entire business on it.
Starbucks launched a beta app in ChatGPT letting customers describe a mood or upload a photo to get drink recommendations, per a Wednesday (April 15) announcement. Type “@Starbucks, I want something bright to start my morning” and ChatGPT returns a personalized suggestion.
Customers complete checkout through the Starbucks app or website, a choice the company makes deliberately given its reliance on its loyalty program, as CNBC reported. The discovery happens in ChatGPT. The purchase stays inside Starbucks.
Little Caesars Pizza announced in a Thursday (April 16) press release that it has launched its ChatGPT app across all U.S. markets and many restaurants in Canada and Mexico. Customers describe what they want, get recommendations and build an order with a conversation inside ChatGPT. But they finish checkout in the Little Caesars app.
“Today’s consumers are turning to GenAI as part of how they search for everything, including where to get their next meal,” Little Caesars Chief Marketing Officer Greg Hamilton said. “We want to meet our customers where they already are.”
Cutting out the Delivery Platforms
In a Wednesday news release, Bites said it is the first AI-native food ordering platform, launched on ChatGPT letting diners browse and place orders directly inside the chatbot with no fees. According to Bites, third-party delivery platforms have charged restaurants commissions as high as 30% per order. The platform connects directly through restaurant point-of-sale systems, with in-store pricing.
“With ChatGPT and POS partnerships, we’re removing the need for a third-party marketplace layer,” Bites founder and CEO Bala Subramaniam said. “Restaurants keep more of what they earn.”
A customer can ask for “pizza near me” or “breakfast in San Jose” and move from discovery to checkout inside a single conversation. The company plans to announce its first point-of-sale partners at the upcoming Restaurant Leadership Conference.
ChatGPT as a Commerce Channel
Starbucks and Little Caesars are not the first to build inside ChatGPT. DoorDash launched a grocery shopping app inside ChatGPT in December 2025, letting customers turn a recipe into a grocery order delivered from local stores, Instacart launched the same month, becoming the first app to offer end-to-end checkout, including payment, without leaving the ChatGPT interface.
That checkout experiment didn’t last. In March, OpenAI scrapped Instant Checkout after it failed to drive purchases, citing its inability to offer merchants the flexibility they needed. The company shifted its focus to product discovery, letting merchants handle their own transactions.
Several merchants involved said the program didn’t drive sales, and that they decided to let ChatGPT handle discovery while owning the transaction themselves. For example, Walmart’s data showed the gap. Customers who clicked through to the retailer’s website to finish a purchase converted at three times the rate of those who tried to buy inside ChatGPT directly, according to CNBC.
OpenAI’s retreat handed the advantage back to the brands. The transaction stays with them. ChatGPT becomes the front door. What happens behind it is still theirs to control. Starbucks keeps the loyalty program. Little Caesars keeps the checkout. Bites is the only one still betting ChatGPT can own both.
