Key points
- Adobe projects a 130% jump in AI-driven visits to US retail sites over the coming holiday period, a figure cited in a sponsored Writesonic guide.
- OpenAI widened its Agentic Commerce Protocol in March 2026 to cover product discovery, and merchants now send catalog feeds so items can surface in ChatGPT.
- A tracked analysis cited in the guide found feed-based picks in ChatGPT rose from 8.26% to 61.54% in a single July 2026 day.
- Writesonic's study found YouTube or Reddit mentions made a brand roughly three times likelier to appear in AI answers.
Why it matters for marketers: Product cards in AI answers now influence who gets the click, so marketers need to audit feeds, prices and identifiers across channels instead of relying on their own site alone.
A sponsored guide published by Search Engine Journal, written by Writesonic, argues that brands should check how AI tools present their products. When shoppers ask ChatGPT or Google what to buy, the answers often include product cards built from data scattered across the web. The guide groups failures into three types: a product is absent, it appears with wrong details, or a competitor or reseller captures the click.
The guide ties the urgency to the holidays, citing an Adobe projection of a 130% rise in AI-driven visits to US retail sites. It also notes that OpenAI extended its Agentic Commerce Protocol to product discovery in March 2026 and moved checkout back to merchants' own sites. Google's AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini draw on its Shopping Graph, which merchants feed mainly through Merchant Center.
For marketers, the main lesson is consistency. If your feed, product page and third-party retailer listings give conflicting prices, stock status or product names, an AI system must choose one version, and it may choose wrong. The guide also cites an analysis showing ChatGPT picks from integrated feeds surged in one July 2026 day, with 450 of 517 stores seeing large visibility swings lose ground. Writesonic's own research adds that outside mentions on YouTube or Reddit matter more than a brand's own site.
The recommended next step is to build a prompt set from your catalog, grouped by category, use case, budget and gift scenario, and run it across ChatGPT and Google's AI surfaces while logged out. Start with best sellers, fill in missing identifiers such as GTINs, and repeat checks often, since results shift by platform, region and day. Note that the guide promotes Writesonic's own tracking tool, so weigh it accordingly.
Sources
This brief is our own summary. Read the full reporting at the source.