Nike Found Runners Shopping on ChatGPT. So It Built for Them.

If runners are starting their shopping journey somewhere else, Nike is building into where they’re already going.

For years, running brands have fought to get runners into their stores, onto their websites and inside their apps.

Nike just went somewhere else to find them.

The company says consumers are already using ChatGPT to look for their next pair of shoes. So Nike partnered with OpenAI and built a conversational Nike Running Shoe Finder directly inside ChatGPT.

It isn’t simply a chatbot recommending sneakers. The experience asks runners about things like target distance, terrain and preferences, then serves up specific Nike shoes inside a distinctly Nike-designed experience, with a path to buy from Nike.

The people who worked on it provide an interesting window into the project. Sophie Otto, Nike’s Senior Director of Digital Product Design, said Nike partnered with OpenAI after seeing consumers look for their next pair on ChatGPT. She credited contributors across Digital, Technology, Legal, Security and Brand.

Chloe Lee, who works across design, strategy and storytelling at Nike, described spending the first half of the year immersed in Nike Running and learning how agentic commerce works. Her announcement: the Nike Running Shoe Finder is now live in ChatGPT.

And this isn’t Nike’s first move into AI-powered shopping. In May, Nike announced an integration with Google’s AI commerce technology that lets consumers discover and purchase Nike products through Gemini and AI Mode in Google Search.

Nike said the goal was to reduce the distance between product discovery and checkout while meeting athletes wherever they choose to shop.

Put the two developments together and a larger shift starts to emerge.

Running brands spent the last decade building direct-to-consumer businesses designed to own the relationship with runners. AI potentially creates a new front door, one the brands don’t own.

A runner can simply ask: I’m training for a marathon. I want something cushioned for long runs but don’t want anything heavy. What should I buy?

The competition used to be for shelf space, Google rankings and social attention. Increasingly, brands may also be competing to become the answer.

Nike’s response appears straightforward: if runners are starting their shopping journey somewhere else, don’t wait for them to come to Nike. Build Nike into where they’re already going.

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