South Africa, Sept. 9 -- So perhaps it's no surprise that these businesses have started exploring new ways of making money as well as spending it.

OpenAI, for example, is exploring a partnership with Shopify, one of the world's largest e-commerce platforms, which helps businesses manage online selling.

The reported deal between the two companies would see OpenAI receive a cut of any Shopify sales that result from recommendations provided by ChatGPT, creating a new revenue stream for OpenAI and more online traffic for Shopify.

But this relationship could be risky for consumers if OpenAI became incentivised to push people towards products, rather than offering genuinely objective recommendations. It might even push recommendations when u...