This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) said it has agreed to acquire Cymbio, a platform focused on helping merchants sell products across AI-powered chatbots, as the company continues to broaden its role within digital commerce. The deal, which does not disclose financial terms, is expected to close in the first half of this year. The move appears to reflect PayPal’s view that conversational AI could become an increasingly important channel for how consumers discover and purchase products online.
The acquisition builds on PayPal’s push into what it calls agentic commerce, following the launch of a suite of related services in October aimed at helping merchants adapt to shifting shopping behavior. Cymbio, which is based in Tel Aviv, is expected to complement PayPal’s existing catalog and order management tools that allow merchants’ products to surface across AI chat interfaces while preserving brand control. PayPal has positioned these services as a way for merchants to potentially reach more buyers as AI-enabled shopping gains traction.
Several brands, including Abercrombie & Fitch, Fabletics, and Ashley Furniture, are already using PayPal’s agentic commerce tools on platforms such as Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, according to the company. PayPal said support for OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Gemini app and AI-powered search features is expected to follow. Michelle Gill, PayPal’s executive vice president and general manager of small business and financial services, said making product catalogs discoverable on AI surfaces could help merchants increase sales while expanding product choice for consumers shopping through AI platforms.
