OpenAI’s latest update to ChatGPT now includes shopping results directly in conversations. This marks a big shift away from traditional search engines and towards using structured product data as the main way people discover things to buy online. If you’re an online brand or an online retailer, now is the time to prepare and adapt to this change.
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TL;DR: What brands and retailers need to know about ChatGPT Shopping
As more and more people use ChatGPT to discover and buy products, having accurate, complete, and well-optimised product feeds is essential to getting found.
Make sure you:
- Allow the ChatGPT crawler
- Prepare and submit structured product feeds
- Optimise every product attribute
- Track your traffic from ChatGPT
- Keep an eye on updates such as the Shopify integration and new feed submission tools.
What is ChatGPT shopping and how does it work?
ChatGPT Shopping means that product results can now appear in your conversation with the AI. For example, if you ask for “women’s white short-sleeved shirt for work” ChatGPT can now show detailed product suggestions. These include key details like price, availability, product features, and direct links to buy from sites like Next, Asos, Amazon, and more.
The important bit: This only works if your website’s product data is accurate and updated in real time. Without structured data feeds, your products won’t show up.
What shopping with ChatGPT looks like for consumers
Here’s what users see when shopping with ChatGPT:
- Curated, ad-free product recommendations (currently, there are no sponsored ads /paid placements).
- Interactive product cards with up-to-date pricing, star ratings, and review highlights.
- Direct links to retailers where users can purchase products.
- Possibly even personalised suggestions based on previous chats and future memory tools.

ChatGPT still uses some traditional web elements too, such as Bing search results and Google’s favicon images.
How does ChatGPT affect SEO?
This update demonstrates more than ever how AI is quickly becoming the new way people search and find products. With this update, structured and accurate data is becoming more important than traditional SEO in determining which products show up. Experts say ChatGPT’s shopping tool is different from other AI tools because it’s designed to be conversational from the start. It makes shopping easier by combining reviews, prices, and comparisons all in one conversation – no more jumping between tabs or dealing with ads. In essence, the focus for SEO is shifting towards product data management, feed optimisation, and ensuring technical accessibility for AI crawlers, rather than solely relying on traditional keyword optimisation and link building for organic search rankings.
Is ChatGPT Teaming Up with Shopify? What We Know So Far
There are reports that OpenAI may partner with Shopify to add built-in shopping features directly into ChatGPT. While nothing is official yet, code leaks suggest that users might soon be able to browse, compare, and even buy products without ever leaving the chat.
If this rolls out, it could change how online shopping works – starting with Shopify merchants and possibly expanding to other platforms. This would put ChatGPT on par with competitors such as Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity, which already allow merchants to offer direct purchases through AI. But OpenAI has a big advantage: it’s estimated to reach 77.1 million users in the US alone this year.
Teaming up with Shopify would effectively turn ChatGPT into a complete shopping tool – from search to checkout.
How to get your products listed in ChatGPT Shopping
To make sure your products show up in ChatGPT Shopping, here’s what you need to do:
Allow ChatGPT’s Web Crawler
ChatGPT uses a crawler called OAI-SearchBot to find product info. Make sure your website doesn’t block this crawler in your robots.txt file. This is step one – if the bot can’t see your site, your products won’t appear. Don’t worry, this crawler is used just for ChatGPT’s search, not for training AI models.
Submit Real-Time Product Feeds
This is the most important part. ChatGPT needs structured product data feeds with real-time prices, availability, and details to show your products properly. OpenAI is working on a tool to make submitting feeds easier. In the meantime, you can sign up for updates through the OpenAI Product Discovery interest form. Many merchants are already submitting feeds, which may allow features such as price comparison in the future.
Optimise Your Product Details
It’s not enough just to appear. You want your products to rank well. Like with Google’s Free Product Listings, you need to optimise each attribute in your feed. That means accurate, up-to-date data and using the keywords your customers are searching for.
Here are the key attributes to optimise:
- id – unique product ID
- title – product name
- link – product page URL
- image_link – main image URL
- price – current price
- description – short summary
- availability – in stock or not
- condition – new, used, etc.
- brand – brand name
- gtin/mpn – global identifiers
- multipack – how many in a pack
- bundle – whether it’s a bundle
- color, size, age_group, gender
- item_group_id – to group variants
- shipping, tax, pattern, material
- additional_image_link – more images
- size_type, size_system
- canonical_link – helps with search indexing
Track Traffic from ChatGPT
When people click on your product links from ChatGPT, it automatically adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to the link. This makes it easy to track visits from ChatGPT in tools like Google Analytics.
The future: What ChatGPT Shopping means for online brands/retailers
At the moment, there are no ads in ChatGPT Shopping, but that may change soon. Sponsored placements or direct checkout features could be added in future updates. Monetization (via ads, affiliates, or something else) seems likely. And users might be more accepting of ads in AI tools than many assume.
There are also challenges to be overcome. For example, ChatGPT sometimes gives incorrect information. For example, when searching for a ‘pink dress’ or ‘pink shirt’ it may not necessarily bring back that colour at the moment. Also relying too much on user history could make it harder for new brands to get seen. However, adapting now means you’ll be better positioned to reach customers who are already shopping through conversational AI and drive real revenue through ChatGPT in the future.
If you’d like some help and support with setting up your ecommerce website for ChatGPT shopping, or general support with SEO, CRO or Paid Search – please get in touch with one of our team at team@modo25.com