AI search
Getting your store into AI answers: what works, and what is hype
Shoppers now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI what to buy. A few things clearly decide whether your store can be named. A lot of what is sold as "AI optimisation" does nothing. Here is each claim with its source, so you can check us.
The three things you control
Whether the AI is allowed to read your store. Each assistant sends its own crawler. If your firewall, your hosting company or a security plugin turns it away, your store cannot appear in its answers. This is the most common problem we see, and the cheapest to fix.
Whether your products are in its catalogue. Shopping answers are built from product feeds: name, price, stock, brand, product code, shipping. A product that is missing from the feed, or refused because a field is empty, is not there to be shown.
Whether your pages answer the buyer's question. An AI quotes pages that say something specific: who the product suits, how it compares, what it costs to ship, what the return terms are. A product page with a photo and two lines gives it nothing to quote.
What you do not control is the answer itself. Nobody does. That is why we promise the work and not the recommendation.
What is proven, and what is hype
Each row links to where it comes from. If a study changes, we change the row.
| What you are told to do | Verdict | What the evidence says |
|---|---|---|
| Let the AI crawlers read your store | Proven | OpenAI states that sites opted out of its search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. Many stores block it without knowing, through a security plugin or a firewall rule. OpenAI: crawlers |
| Keep a complete product feed | Proven | Google lists keeping Merchant Center information up to date among the things that help in its AI answers. ChatGPT shopping takes products from merchant feeds, with no fee for being listed. Google: AI features |
| Do ordinary SEO well | Proven | Google says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. A page has to be indexed and good enough to show in normal search. Google: AI features |
| Be named on other sites | Likely | In a study of 75,000 brands, how often a brand is mentioned across the web was the factor most closely tied to showing up in Google's AI answers. It is a link between two numbers, not proof of cause. Ahrefs: brand mentions |
| Add numbers, quotes and sources to pages | Likely | A Princeton-led study found that pages with statistics, quotations and cited sources were picked up more often by AI answer engines. It was a research test, not a study of online stores. GEO paper (arXiv) |
| Rank in Google's top 10 and the AI will cite you | Weaker than it was | In July 2025, 76% of the pages cited in Google's AI answers also ranked in the top 10. By March 2026 it was 38%. Ranking still helps, but it is no longer enough. Ahrefs: AI citations |
| Add schema markup to get cited by AI | No measured effect | A study of 1,885 pages found no measurable lift in AI citations from adding schema. Google says no special structured data is needed. Schema is still worth having for product results in normal search. Ahrefs: schema study |
| Add an llms.txt file | Not needed | Google: "You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features." Google: AI features |
| "We got ChatGPT to recommend you", shown as one screenshot | Proves nothing | When the same question is asked again and again, an AI gives the same list of brands less than once in a hundred tries. Only how often you appear over many tries is a stable number. SparkToro: AI consistency |
Sources read in November 2026. AI search changes fast, so treat every row as "true when we checked".
Product feeds: the part most stores are missing
A product feed is a file that lists everything you sell, in a form a machine can read: name, price, stock, brand, product code, picture, shipping. Google Shopping has run on feeds for years. ChatGPT shopping runs on them too.
If your store is on Shopify or Etsy, it is connected to ChatGPT shopping already. If it runs on WooCommerce or PrestaShop, somebody has to do three things:
- Build the feed from your catalogue and keep it in step with prices and stock.
- Fill in what is missing. Brand and product code (GTIN) are the usual reasons a product is refused.
- Send it to Google Merchant Center, and apply to OpenAI's merchant programme with it.
ChatGPT shopping is open to US shoppers and charges stores nothing for being listed. OpenAI decides who is accepted and when, so we promise a correct feed and a sent application, not a date. All three jobs are part of the Fix Sprint.
Source: ChatGPT for merchants
How we measure whether AIs name your store
Ask an AI "which espresso grinder should I buy" twice and you get two different lists. So a single answer, good or bad, tells you nothing.
We write down the questions your buyers really ask, about twenty of them. We ask each one many times, in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI. Then we count.
What a line in the report looks like (example numbers): "Your store was named in 14 of 100 answers this month. Last month it was 9. These three competitors were named more often than you, and this is what their pages say that yours don't."
We do this by hand and with our own scripts. It is slower than a dashboard, and it means a person has read the answers before you get the number.
Questions owners ask about AI search
Is SEO dead now that people ask AI?
No. Google still sends far more buyers to stores than any AI assistant does, and the stores AIs name are mostly ones that already do well in search. AI search is an extra place to be found, with a few extra jobs.
Can you get my store into ChatGPT shopping?
We can make your store eligible and apply. Shopify and Etsy stores are connected already. Other stores apply with a product feed and wait for OpenAI to accept them. At the moment it covers shoppers in the US.
Do I need an llms.txt file?
No. Google says it is not needed for its AI answers, and we have seen no evidence that it changes what any AI assistant says about a store.
How do you know if AI recommends my store?
We ask the AIs the questions your buyers ask, many times each, and count how often your store is named. One answer tells you nothing, because the answers change every time.
Can an AI read your store today?
Send us the address and we'll tell you, along with four other things, within 3 business days. Free.