How AI search actually sees e-commerce catalogs
Practitioner case studies, catalog audits, and live tests tracking how ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode index, reconcile, and cite real brands.
All Research Articles (18)
When ChatGPT Became a Front Door to a Shopify Store
AI shopping traffic can be traced from product discoverability to ChatGPT referral to purchase. We followed 70 ChatGPT-referred sessions into a Shopify store: four converted into five purchase events totaling ₹3,127.
Nobody Owns the Layer Between Your Shopify Store and AI
When the catalog, storefront, and feed have owners — but the layer between them doesn't.
We Had 33 Products in Shopify. Only 17 Were Showing Up.
What we found when we followed the products outside Shopify
Your Shopify Store Has More Product Data Than AI Can See
The Shopify Playbook — Part 1 of 3. An audit of a 33-SKU Shopify catalog found rich product attributes that never appeared in the machine-readable format we could inspect.
We're Optimizing a Tattoo Aftercare Brand for AI Citations. The First 14 Days Were Surprisingly Mixed.
Structure didn't clearly move search visibility. Content depth did. AI citations are still the open question.
How to Build the Query Set That Actually Tests Your AI Visibility
The queries aren't a setup step. They define what your experiment can actually measure.
What Actually Gets You Cited in AI Search (And Which "AI SEO" Rules Broke When We Tested Them)
We ran real citation tests across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Reddit — and most of the 'AI SEO' rules didn't survive contact with the data.
Your AI visibility test probably has a location bug
Every AI visibility test has a location — even when you think it doesn't. I learned this the hard way, measuring India's #1 tattoo aftercare brand from a laptop in New Jersey.
One Storefront vs. Seven Surfaces
The New Shelf · Platform Series · Companion to “Google: Seven Surfaces, One Feed”
Google: Seven Surfaces, One Feed
The New Shelf · Platform Series · No. 3
Six Platforms. Thirty Surfaces. One Buyer.
The complete map of every place your products can appear — or disappear — in 2026. The New Shelf · Platform Series · No. 2
Product Discovery Just Left the Marketplace.
Every major platform where buyers spend time has independently arrived at the same infrastructure requirement. Amazon is the last to join — and that tells you everything.
The largest promotional products distributor in North America has zero ChatGPT product cards.
Five weeks of data. One pattern I couldn't explain away. June 2026 · 6 sessions · 360 data points · ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode
I Promised Data. Here It Is. Some of It Confirmed What I Expected. Some of It Didn't.
Six weeks of field measurements on AI search visibility. Three findings I expected. One I didn't.
I Met With the Companies Building AI Visibility Tools. The Most Honest Answer Was: Nobody Knows Exactly What's Working Yet.
Five conversations from the Lead Summit — and what the uncertainty actually tells you about where this market is heading.
The AI Visibility Market Just Split Into Three Camps. Most Businesses Are Talking to the Wrong One.
A tour of 20+ tools from the Lead Summit — and the questions that Camp 3 is only beginning to answer.
The End of Blue Links: How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of Search
For 25 years, SEO meant ranking on Google. Now the game has changed — and most businesses don't realize they're already losing it.
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