In a rapidly evolving digital economy, the boundary between conversation and commerce is beginning to blur. ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, has recently expanded beyond its traditional role as a conversational and content-generation tool to experiment with integrated commercial interactions. Through the newly introduced Instant Checkout feature, users in selected regions currently including the United States can purchase certain products directly within the chat interface without being redirected to external websites. This marks an early but significant step toward a new model of conversational commerce. For Jordan, such developments highlight an emerging opportunity to explore how locally developed digital goods and services could one day reach global markets through AI-driven platforms once these technologies become more widely accessible.

 

Jordan’s strengths in human capital, technology, and digital services are well recognized across the region. Over the past decade, the country has cultivated a vibrant startup ecosystem supported by government initiatives such as REACH2025 and the Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship. Jordanian software engineers, designers, and digital content creators are increasingly sought after in regional and international markets for their technical expertise and creativity. Much of this talent, however, remains engaged in freelance or project-based digital work rather than developing and exporting fully packaged digital products. As conversational AI platforms begin to integrate commerce capabilities such as in-chat purchasing the prospect emerges for Jordanian firms to explore new distribution channels for their digital goods, including templates, educational content, and lightweight software services, once these technologies become more globally implementable.

 

This opportunity aligns well with Jordan’s evolving tax and regulatory environment. In late 2023, the government approved legal amendments that exempt net income from the export of certain digital services including IT, software, and outsourcing from income tax until December 31, 2033. The statutory framework also maintains that exports of goods and services outside Jordan are subject to a zero rate under the General Sales Tax (GST) regime. Together, these incentives reduce friction and taxation burdens for digital exporters, making it financially more attractive to scale across borders.

 

The timing could hardly be better. On September 29, 2025, OpenAI announced the launch of the Instant Checkout feature in ChatGPT, allowing users in the United States to purchase products directly within the chat interface. This feature currently supports purchases from Etsy sellers, with plans to expand to over a million merchants on Shopify, including brands such as Glossier, SKIMS, Spanx, and Vuori. OpenAI is actively moving toward embedding full checkout processes in ChatGPT and building out its Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) with Stripe to support seamless in-chat transactions. As these capabilities roll out beyond the U.S., Jordanian digital product exporters could find themselves visible and able to transact directly in conversational spaces previously unreachable.

 

But the leap is not automatic. To succeed, Jordan must evolve how these digital products are developed, packaged, localized, and integrated. Products must be discoverable within AI assistants: they must be described with semantic precision (so the AI understands what they do), presented with clean metadata, and aligned with user intents rather than traditional search keywords. The AI’s “shelf space” will become a competitive real estate in itself. Moreover, integrating a product into an AI conversation requires that post-sales services updates, support, localization are designed into the product’s lifecycle from the start.

 

The potential economic and social impacts of developing AI-mediated digital exports in Jordan could be significant. By fostering the growth of digital export firms, the country could provide more structured employment opportunities for software engineers, designers, and digital content creators, moving beyond the predominance of freelance and gig-based work. Such firms could bring foreign currency revenues directly into the country, supporting Jordan’s balance of payments and reducing dependence on foreign aid or remittances. The competitive nature of the digital export sector is likely to encourage innovation, as success would increasingly depend on product quality, usability, and customer satisfaction. Expanding these opportunities could also help address youth unemployment, particularly among graduates in technical and creative fields. Over time, strengthening this sector could contribute to positioning Jordan as an emerging hub for digital creativity in the Middle East.

 

To unlock that potential, Jordan must act with urgency and coordination. The government could establish a National AI Export Office, housed perhaps under the Ministry of Digital Economy or the Investment Commission. Its role would be to certify digital exporters, negotiate pathways into AI commerce platforms (e.g. ChatGPT, GPT Store), and offer training in AI-centric productization. A “Digital Exports Fund” could subsidize the cost of localization, user-experience design, payment integration, and marketing in target markets like the U.S. Partnerships with platforms like OpenAI, Stripe, and Shopify could open a “fast track” for vetted Jordanian products, ensuring priority visibility in AI conversation feeds.

 

If Jordan moves swiftly, it could find that it was at the right “crossroads” at precisely the right moment. In a world where conversations become commerce, the next big exports may not be physical goods at all but digital intelligence. In that future, Jordan’s code, creativity, and digital design will not just serve foreign clients remotely they will be embedded into global consumer experiences. The turn from chat to commerce offers the Kingdom a chance to leapfrog into the next phase of economic growth, and what begins as an experiment might soon become a pillar of its export economy.

 

Lubna Ammari is a specialist in educational technology