How do shops get recommended by AI shopping assistants?

Ecommerce brands get recommended by AI shopping assistants by giving them product data they can trust. That means titles, prices, stock and attributes that agree across your store, your feeds and every marketplace you sell on, product pages that answer buyers' questions in text, and genuine reviews on public sites. You can't buy a place in ChatGPT's product results: OpenAI says they're selected independently and aren't ads.

So the work isn't a trick or a new ad format. It's the product data and content your store already runs on, made complete and consistent enough that a machine can compare you fairly. Here's how ChatGPT and Google's AI Mode choose, and what to change.

What is an AI shopping assistant?

It's an AI tool that answers a buying question with products, not just links. Ask ChatGPT for a waterproof walking jacket under £150 and it can show a carousel of products with prices and merchants. Google says its AI Mode answers bring together prices, reviews and inventory.

Google's November 2025 shopping announcement says AI Mode can show a comparison table with a side-by-side view, with details like prices, reviews and inventory in each response. It draws on Google's Shopping Graph, which Google says holds more than 50 billion product listings, 2 billion of which are updated every hour. The same announcement started agentic checkout, where Google buys an item on the merchant's site with Google Pay once the shopper confirms, for eligible merchants in the US.

For a UK brand, the lesson from those numbers is speed. Prices and stock change by the hour, and the assistant compares what it holds now, not what your site said last month.

How does ChatGPT choose which products to show?

OpenAI explains this in its help article on shopping with ChatGPT search. A product appears in the carousel when ChatGPT perceives it to be relevant to the shopper's intent. To decide, it uses structured metadata from first-party and third-party providers, along with its own policies, and price carries more weight when the shopper states a budget.

Merchants are then ranked on factors like availability, price, quality and whether they make or primarily sell the item. ChatGPT also highlights the lowest priced option it's aware of with a "Best price" label. Review summaries are written from public websites, and OpenAI says it doesn't verify reviews and ratings.

Read that list as a buyer would. Out of stock loses. A price that's higher on your own site than on a marketplace can hand the "Best price" label to someone else. And a brand that makes its own products has a fact in its favour that it should state plainly.

What does that mean for your product data?

It means one version of the truth. If your Shopify store, your Google Merchant Center feed and your marketplace listings disagree on a price, a colour name or whether a size is in stock, an assistant comparing them has a reason to trust you less, or to send the shopper to whichever listing looks cheapest.

Google says the same about its own AI features. Its guidance for site owners lists checking that your Merchant Center information is up to date and making sure your structured data matches the visible text on the page. Neither is new advice. What's new is that the comparison happens instantly, across every merchant, every time someone asks.

Does it matter if you're on Shopify?

It helps with access. OpenAI says product data for Shopify merchants is already integrated into ChatGPT through Shopify Catalog, and any merchant interested in a direct product feed can apply to OpenAI for access.

Being connected isn't the same as being chosen, though. Once your catalogue is in, its quality decides how you show up: complete titles, accurate attributes, real stock levels and prices that match everywhere else.

How should your product pages change?

Write them to answer the questions a shopper asks an assistant. Which jacket is lightest? Will this fit a 15-inch laptop? Is it machine washable? How long is delivery to Northern Ireland? If the answer only exists in a product photo or a size chart image, an AI tool has less to work with than if it's written in the description.

Category pages need the same treatment. A short buying guide on a collection page that explains the difference between your three main options gives an assistant a reason to quote you when someone asks which one to buy. Keep it factual. OpenAI writes review summaries from public websites and says it doesn't verify reviews and ratings, so genuine reviews on public sites count for more than claims on your own page.

How do you know if it's working?

Test it the way your customers shop. Put your top buying questions into ChatGPT and Google's AI Mode, by category and by price point, and record which products and shops get named. Run the same questions every month and watch the trend, alongside the traffic and orders that arrive from AI tools in your analytics.

Our guide to checking whether AI assistants recommend your business sets out how to run those checks.

Where does DLR Media fit?

Our ecommerce team has 7 years in commerce and clients in 15 markets. We run GEO for online shops every day inside our Growth Marketing Packages, from £3,000 a month + VAT, priced by your monthly online revenue band, alongside SEO, Google Ads, Meta Ads, Klaviyo email and CRO. The work covers the product data, feeds, pages and reviews AI assistants read, and our GEO for ecommerce page explains it in more detail.

If you'd rather see where you stand first, our ecommerce GEO and AI search audit shows how AI tools describe your store and products today and ranks the fixes. Scope and price are confirmed before we start. You can also read how we approach ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews specifically.

Frequently asked questions

What does "Best price" mean in ChatGPT?

It's the label ChatGPT uses to highlight the lowest priced option it's aware of for a product. If a marketplace lists your item for less than your own store, that listing can carry the label instead of you.

Do I need a product feed for ChatGPT?

No. OpenAI also uses structured metadata from third-party providers, and on Shopify your product data is already integrated through Shopify Catalog. Any merchant can apply to OpenAI for a direct feed if they want one.

Should I keep Merchant Center up to date for AI Mode?

Yes. Google's guidance for its AI features lists checking that your Merchant Center information is up to date among the practices site owners should follow, and AI Mode answers show prices, reviews and inventory.

Talk to our ecommerce team

Want to see which products AI assistants put forward in your categories, and whether yours are among them? Call us on +44 1382 699595 or read about GEO for ecommerce.