PayPal Holdings Inc. has agreed to acquire Cymbio, a Tel Aviv-based multi-channel orchestration platform.
The payments company is deepening its push to help merchants sell products inside AI-driven shopping environments such as Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity. The companies did not disclose the deal’s terms. They expect the transaction to close in the first half of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions.
Cymbio said its technology enables brands to distribute product catalogs and manage orders across digital channels. That includes AI assistants and online marketplaces. PayPal previously partnered with Cymbio as part of its agentic commerce services. The services are a suite of tools to make merchants’ products discoverable and purchasable within AI platforms where consumers increasingly research and initiate purchases.
“PayPal has established itself as a leading commerce partner for merchants looking to sell within top AI platforms,” said Michelle Gill, executive vice president and general manager of small business and financial services at PayPal, in a statement. “Acquiring Cymbio’s technology and team will enhance our agentic commerce capabilities and accelerate the expansion to more of our merchants.”
Founded in 2015, Cymbio said it has focused on helping brands manage product listings, inventory and orders across marketplaces and digital sales channels from a centralized platform. It expects its experience in marketplace integrations and brand syndication to support PayPal’s effort to standardize how merchant data feeds into AI-based shopping experiences.
Headquartered in San Jose, California, PayPal operates in about 200 markets. It has expanded its offerings in recent years beyond payments into:
- Fraud management
- Subscriptions
- Cross-border transactions
- Checkout optimization
The Cymbio acquisition extends that PayPal strategy into AI-mediated commerce.
About PayPal’s Cymbio acquisition
PayPal said its agentic commerce services and checkout options are already available to merchants operating on Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity. Integrations with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini app and AI Mode are planned.
Central to the integration is PayPal’s “Store Sync” service. It allows merchants’ product data to be indexed and surfaced within AI interfaces. Orders placed through those channels are routed into merchants’ existing fulfillment and order management systems. PayPal said merchants remain the merchant of record and retain control of customer relationships and brand experience.
Abercrombie & Fitch, Fabletics, Ashley Furniture, Newegg and Adorama are among the retailers currently live with Store Sync on Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity, according to PayPal.
The Cymbio acquisition underscores PayPal’s strategy to position itself as commerce infrastructure for transactions that originate beyond traditional ecommerce websites. As AI assistants become product discovery and comparison tools, merchants need structured product data, real-time inventory visibility and checkout capabilities that can function outside their own sites.
By bringing Cymbio in-house, PayPal said it gains technology and engineering expertise in connecting brands to complex digital ecosystems that require continuous catalog updates and order routing across channels.
Cymbio’s team will join PayPal after the deal closes. PayPal did not say how it will integrate the business or whether the Cymbio brand will continue to operate independently.
Technology companies including Microsoft, OpenAI, Google and Perplexity are adding shopping and product recommendation capabilities to their AI assistants, prompting merchants and commerce providers to adapt to new ways consumers find and buy products.
For PayPal, the deal reflects a bet that a growing share of digital commerce will begin in AI interfaces rather than search engines or retailer websites — and that merchants will need infrastructure to participate in those channels without overhauling their commerce systems.
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