Learn · AEO Index
How ChatGPT shopping works (and how to show up)
“Find me a merino base layer under $120.” To the shopper it looks like magic. Underneath, it’s a pipeline you can optimise for — once you know its shape.
It reads catalogs, not webpages
The agent doesn’t browse your site. It queries structured product catalogs, reads the results, and ranks them. If your store doesn’t expose a machine-readable catalog, the agent has nothing to read — you’re not in the running. Why a store goes invisible →
It matches words, then weighs the field
For a specific request, the strongest signal is whether the shopper’s words appear in your product data. Then the agent weighs relevance, price, availability and rating to pick the handful it returns.
It returns a few, and stops
No page two. Three to five products, often. That compression is the whole game: AEO is about being one of the few, which means being reachable, well-titled, and priced in range. Check if ChatGPT can find your store →