At Azoma, we believe mastering AI-first discovery is the new frontier of ecommerce. As ChatGPT evolves from answer engine to answer & action engine, ecommerce brands must optimize not just for clicks, but for conversions inside every AI agent conversation. This article explores AI Shopping Optimization techniques to help sellers get their products in ChatGPT.
Why ChatGPT Shopping Features Matter for Modern Ecommerce Brands
ChatGPT's recently launched product carousels (April 28, 2025) transform it into a discovery-to-purchase channel, presenting users with visual product recommendations, detailed information, and direct purchase links based on their specific needs rather than paid placements (OpenAI). This significant update means AI agents now actively influence purchasing decisions by displaying curated product results with images, pricing comparisons, and helpful labels like "budget-friendly" or "most popular"—all within the chat interface.
With Gartner forecasting generative AI spending to reach $644 billion in 2025, representing a massive 76.4% year-over-year growth (VentureBeat),, brands that secure prime positioning in AI-powered shopping experiences stand to capture disproportionate market share as customer behavior and discovery patterns rapidly transform through natural language processing.
How Does AI Shopping Optimization Impact Customer Experience?
The integration of large language models (LLMs) into shopping channels is revolutionizing how consumers discover and interact with products online. Virtual assistants powered by machine learning now understand user queries with unprecedented accuracy, delivering relevant product recommendations at exactly the right time in the customer journey.
Customer service experiences are being enhanced through automation, reducing cart abandonment rates and improving overall user experience. Shoppers can now engage in natural conversations about their needs, receiving personalized suggestions that align with their specific needs and budget constraints.
How do I Ensure my Content can be Found in ChatGPT Shopping?
1. Join OpenAI's Merchant Program Waitlist for Better Product Discovery
OpenAI is currently "exploring an easy way for retailers to provide their product feeds directly to ChatGPT" to ensure accurate, up-to-date listings in search results. While the program isn't fully launched yet, interested merchants can complete an interest form to be notified when submissions open.
By participating early, your products will be better positioned to appear in AI-generated recommendations, reaching users during their shopping journey with more accurate information.
2. How Can You Optimize for AI Web Crawler Access?
As AI-powered shopping platforms proliferate, ensuring your product pages are accessible to various AI crawlers becomes essential for SEO. Major AI companies deploy specialized crawlers to gather and interpret product information using advanced algorithms.
Review your robots.txt file to confirm it doesn't block these crawlers, including:
OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT Shopping integration
Google's Googlebot-Extended for enhanced Google Shopping features
Anthropic's Claude-Web for competitive AI agent platforms
Microsoft's BingBot for Bing shopping channels
Maintaining crawler access enables multiple AI platforms to discover and recommend your products in relevant shopping queries, improving your overall marketing efforts and workflows.
With Azoma's AI Technical Audit Tool, you can see if your website allows these and other AI crawlers.
3. Enhanced Schema Markup for AI Shopping Optimization
According to OpenAI, ChatGPT's product recommendations rely heavily on structured data, making comprehensive and accurate product metadata crucial for visibility in search results. Machine learning systems require detailed, consistently formatted information to understand product features and match them with user queries.
Verify if your website implements correctly implements structured meta data:
Product name, brand, and category information
Detailed product descriptions with keywords optimization
Pricing data including discounts and availability
Customer ratings and review summaries
Technical specifications and compatibility details
You can also use Azoma's AI Visibility Technical Site Audit tool to assess and generate new schema.
4. Adopt the llms.txt Protocol for Better AI Understanding
The llms.txt protocol is an emerging standard designed to help LLMs better access and understand website content. This proposed standard follows a similar approach to robots.txt and XML sitemaps, creating a streamlined way for AI systems to process website content through natural language processing.
While it's still gaining adoption, implementing llms.txt now could position your brand favorably as more AI platforms begin supporting this standard. The file serves as "a curated index for LLMs, providing concise summaries of the site's purpose, critical contextual details, and prioritized links to machine-readable resources."
5. Implement Bing Index Now and Apply to Microsoft Merchant Centre
Given Microsoft's significant investment in OpenAI, optimizing for Bing could potentially provide an indirect advantage for ChatGPT visibility, though this connection remains speculative. Bing's Index Now protocol enables faster load times and indexing of your website's content, ensuring that updates to product listings and metadata are promptly reflected in search results.
Similarly, Microsoft Merchant Centre serves as a strategic gateway for product visibility across Microsoft's expanding AI ecosystem. By establishing your store within Microsoft Merchant Centre and maintaining comprehensive product feeds with accurate pricing, availability, and detailed descriptions, you position your products for potential inclusion in AI-powered shopping experiences.
Given that ChatGPT utilizes Bing's search infrastructure and Microsoft's data sources, products with well-optimized Merchant Centre listings may have enhanced visibility when AI systems evaluate product options. The platform's free listing capabilities on Bing Shopping, combined with structured product data and competitive pricing strategies, create multiple touchpoints where AI systems can discover and recommend your products to users seeking shopping guidance across the Microsoft-OpenAI ecosystem.
What Pricing Strategies Work Best for AI Shopping Platforms?
Based on ChatGPT's own documentation, pricing plays a crucial role in AI shopping optimization. ChatGPT considers price as a major factor when determining which products to surface, especially when users specify budget constraints. Because of this, we recommend sellers adapt in the following ways:
Make sure schema is up to date: Implement structured data that automatically reflects pricing changes, discounts, and availability. Test some listings to make sure your schema reflects these changes, also reference your crawl logs to see when that page was last crawled by ChatGPT.
Measure competitor pricing: Use AI-powered tools for competitive analysis and dynamic pricing based on real-time market data.
Highlight value-based differentiation: If you don't compete on price, ensure clear content highlights your unique value propositions. Don't rely on tables. Emphasize why your product costs more, or why your bundle is a better deal.
Leverage multiple channels: Since ChatGPT may show multiple merchant options, optimize your pricing strategy across all sales channels. If you can, aggregate multiple options on one page, providing ChatGPT the quickest path to all pricing options.
What Content Strategies Work Best for AI Shopping Platforms?
AI shopping platforms like ChatGPT rely heavily on structured metadata and comprehensive product information to make recommendations. Success requires creating a content ecosystem that goes beyond basic product listings.
We recommend creating content that answers customer questions proactively. Our Amazon Rufus conversation explorer is the best tool for that. The explorer can help provide you many of these insights by analyzing how optimized your listing is for the long form questions most asked by customers on Amazon - and likely other ecommerce experiences as well.
Another strategy we recommend is creating a content ecosystem around every listing. This could be FAQ pages for common product questions, ICP-specific blog posts with use case scenarios, or Product comparison guides highlighting competitive advantages. Having a dedicated section on your product page where you link to this content can help provide ChatGPT the information it needs to recommend your product to a customer.
Want Your Product to Appear First on ChatGPT Shopping?
If you want to prepare for the future of AI-powered search and product discovery, our team can help you implement best practices for ChatGPT Shopping success. Azoma's enterprise-grade AI visibility platform is built to help brands appear in AI experiences. We specialize in AI Shopping Optimization techniques that improve user experience, increase conversion rates, and maximize ROI from your marketing efforts.
Get in touch → sales@azoma.ai
Article Author: Max Sinclair