March 13, 2026
Last April, OpenAI began experimenting with product carousels in ChatGPT. And more recently, a study revealed that ChatGPT’s shopping recommendations largely depend on Google Shopping rankings, with around 83% of products shown in ChatGPT shopping carousels also appearing in the top 40 results of Google Shopping.
The study offers some great insight into how eCommerce businesses can improve their product visibility beyond traditional search. So, here are the main findings and what they could mean for your strategy.
The study looked at around 5,000 ChatGPT carousels, which contained 43,000 products, and compared them against over 200,000 organic Google and Bing shopping results (paid ads and sponsored products were excluded). The results were then analysed to see how many of those products matched those found in organic shopping results.
Along with 83% of products being from the top 40 Google Shopping results, the study also found that:
These results lead us to believe, with a fair amount of certainty, that ChatGPT typically retrieves and selects products directly from Google Shopping, and the higher you appear on the feed, the better your chances of appearing in an AI-generated recommendation.
For eCommerce businesses, this is significant for a number of reasons:
If product recommendations in ChatGPT do come from Google Shopping results, then the more visible you are in Google Shopping, the more visible you will be in AI-generated recommendations.
The revelation that 83% of carousel products match the top 40 Google Shopping results suggests that ChatGPT doesn’t crawl the web for products independently, and instead retrieves the items that have already surfaced in Google Shopping results.
Ranking well in Google Shopping may increase the likelihood of appearing in AI product recommendations.
The research also indicates that ChatGPT uses a different process to retrieve products as it does to retrieve information.
ChatGPT typically uses multiple search queries and combines information when answering a question. But when it comes to shopping results, the study found that the system generally uses shorter ‘shopping query fan-outs’ that target product listings directly, often pulling them from a single page of Google Shopping results.
This means:
Only 11% of carousel products matched Bing Shopping listings, and almost none were exclusive to Bing. This means that, even with emerging AI tools, Google's shopping system is the one that continues to dominate AI-driven product discovery.
As ChatGPT pulls products from the top 40 organic Google Shopping results, you are no longer competing with every product, just those in the top 40. If your product doesn’t appear in those top 40, your likelihood of appearing in AI carousels is pretty low.
So, what should you do with this information?
The bottom line is that the more visible you are in Google’s Shopping feed, the more likely you are to appear in a product carousel in ChatGPT. And the importance of Google Merchant Centre, optimising for Google Shopping, and ensuring proper structured product data is more significant than ever before.
Rank well for Google Shopping by optimising product titles, images, availability, keeping prices competitive, and implementing schema data. This way, you can indirectly improve your brand’s chances of appearing in AI-generated product recommendations.
Most AI tools still rely on the systems built by tech giants like Google - applying tactics to rank in Google Shopping will influence your visibility in AI tools like ChatGPT. If you want expert help managing and optimising your Google Shopping feed to boost your AI visibility, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today.
