AI Agents Go Shopping: ChatGPT Atlas and Agentic Commerce
JEPA Monthly Breakdown
From East Africa to the world and back, every single month.
From finance to technology, climate to culture, and healthcare to education, each JEPA desk traces the threads of transformation linking East Africa to the wider world. Expect perspective, proportion, and precision as each edition distills global shifts, continental responses, and regional dynamics - connecting what happens out there to what matters right here.
OpenAI recently launched its instant checkout feature in ChatGPT, enabling US users to buy products from Etsy sellers with support for Shopify merchants coming soon. Built into chat, the tool allows conversational discovery and payment flows inside ChatGPT. On October 21, the company released ChatGPT Atlas, a browser with ChatGPT embedded to help users browse, ask questions about pages, and complete tasks within a single interface, a move many interpret as a challenge to Google Chrome.
African e-commerce platforms like Jumia now face a strategic inflection point as conversational commerce reshapes discovery and purchase pathways. Early adopters such as Walmart report one in five referral clicks now originate from ChatGPT. For Africa’s digital economy, this shift demands real-time inventory systems, payment integration, and API-ready catalogues.
East African merchants and fintechs must prepare for agentic commerce or risk invisibility in AI-driven shopping, transforming disruption into democratisation for sellers seeking global reach.
Honourable Mentions:
Signvrse Launches Africa’s First AI Sign Language Interpreter
Kenyan startup Signvrse launched an AI-powered sign-language interpretation platform that translates speech or text into sign via realistic avatars. Backed by selection into the Google.org Accelerator, Generative AI, Signvrse aims to scale tools for deaf users across Kenya and the region, positioning generative AI as an inclusion and accessibility tool in African education, civic services and digital media.
Google's 13,000x Quantum Leap as Speed Advantage Points to Real-World Applications
Google announced that its Willow quantum chip achieved a verifiable quantum advantage, completing a quantum simulation that the world’s fastest classical supercomputer would take years to perform in mere hours. The breakthrough demonstrates practical applications in molecular structure analysis, drug discovery, and materials science. Google projects real-world quantum computing applications within five years, with early proof-of-principle experiments successfully analysing molecular structures for pharmaceutical research.
Meta's Vibes Feed Sparks AI Video Revolution
Meta launched Vibes, an AI-generated short-form video feed within its Meta AI app allowing users to create, remix, and cross-post synthetic videos to Instagram Reels and Facebook Stories. The feature drove Meta AI app daily active users from 775,000 to 2.7 million by mid-October. The feature signals how generative video is reshaping social media creation, particularly for markets where production resources limit content output.
