GEO for ecommerce: how your products get into AI answers

Reading time: 15 minutes

GEO for ecommerce means preparing your catalog, product pages and reputation so that ChatGPT, Google’s AI Mode and Gemini recommend your store’s products. In Brazil, Google documents shopping in the Gemini app, and ChatGPT started showing products in 2025. However, buying inside the chat is not documented for the country.

What is GEO for ecommerce?

GEO for ecommerce is the work of getting a store’s products to appear when someone asks an AI for a shopping recommendation. It has two fronts, because AI uses two kinds of sources. One is the product data that systems read, such as feeds and catalogs. The other is the pages and mentions the AI consults to write its answer.

The general logic is in the guide on what GEO is. In retail, however, each storefront has its own path to the store’s catalog, and only part of it applies in Brazil.

Storefront	How the product gets in	In-chat purchase in Brazil
ChatGPT	Merchant and third-party data, feeds and pages	No
Google AI Mode	Shopping Graph, with Merchant Center and structured data	No
Gemini app	Shopping Graph, with Merchant Center and structured data	Not documented

The Shopping Graph is Google’s product database. In May 2026, Google said it brings together more than 60 billion product listings. In the Portuguese version of the Gemini help, it appears as Mapa de Compras do Google.

How many Brazilians already use AI to shop?

About half, depending on the survey, but the numbers measure different things. One counts people who used AI in their latest purchase, while another counts people who often use AI to shop. Lastly, a third looks only at people who already use AI. So before citing a figure, check the sample, the question and the collection date.

Survey	Result	Sample
PYMNTS and Visa	53% used AI in their latest purchase	2,273 consumers, March 2026
PYMNTS and Visa	32% researched products on ChatGPT	1,046 in-store shoppers
Optimiza	46.5% often use AI	1,000 consumers, December 2025
Fbiz	46% research with AI before buying	AI users only, July and August 2026

PYMNTS Intelligence produced the Brazil edition of the Global Digital Shopping Index with Visa Acceptance Solutions. Visa is a digital payments company, so it has an interest in the topic. The 32% for ChatGPT, however, comes from a smaller sample: people who bought in a physical store and used digital tools. In 2024, it was 2%. On the same question, Google fell from 79% to 63%, while Gemini had 22% and Mercado Livre 23%.

The Optimiza Marketing study was reported by the Brazilian outlet Adnews. According to TI Inside, the survey was run with AB Pesquisas, with a margin of error of three points. Fbiz and On The Go surveyed 1,200 people, according to Exame. Optimiza and Fbiz sell marketing services to brands. Júlia Neves, CEO of Optimiza, sums up the effect on the product page:

“A pretty page is no longer enough; it needs to be technically machine-readable.”

Júlia Neves, CEO of Optimiza Marketing (2026, translated)

On the merchant side, PYMNTS surveyed 501 Brazilian merchants. Of those, only 15% have structured their product data so that AI agents can read it, the first step in GEO for ecommerce.

Does ChatGPT Shopping work in Brazil?

The sources disagree. ChatGPT started showing products with images, prices and links in Brazil in June 2025. Today, however, OpenAI’s page for merchants says shopping is live for ChatGPT users in the U.S. Either way, when products do appear in ChatGPT, they are organic, with no ads or partnerships, and the purchase ends on the store’s website.

Mobile Time reported the rollout in Brazil for both the paid and free versions. In addition, the OpenAI Help Center does not limit the feature by country. The page for merchants, on the other hand, promises other regions over time. OpenAI does not explain the difference.

According to OpenAI, the selection takes into account structured data from merchants and third parties, reviews and the context of the conversation. The guide on how ChatGPT chooses the sites it cites explains the mechanism. So in ecommerce GEO, structured data and reviews carry weight together.

On March 24, 2026, OpenAI expanded the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) to the discovery of products in ChatGPT. Through the protocol, merchants send product and promotion feeds, including through Salesforce and Stripe. Shopify stores come in through Shopify Catalog, with no extra work.

The direct feed, however, is still restricted. According to OpenAI’s commerce documentation, uploads are open to approved partners, by application. The standard format targets the U.S., while other countries depend on OpenAI’s confirmation.

The product page also counts. According to OpenAI, the shopping research in ChatGPT, launched in November 2025, reads product pages directly and avoids low-quality or spammy sites.

Can you already buy inside ChatGPT, AI Mode or Gemini in Brazil?

Not according to current documentation. In ChatGPT, Instant Checkout launched in 2025 in the U.S. only. Later, in March 2026, OpenAI began prioritizing the merchant’s own checkout. On Google, checkout through the UCP protocol, used for shopping in AI Mode and Gemini, applies to eligible products in the U.S., Canada and Australia. As a result, the purchase ends on the store’s website in Brazil.

OpenAI launched Instant Checkout on September 29, 2025, for users in the U.S., with American Etsy sellers. In March 2026, however, OpenAI said the initial version did not have the flexibility it was looking for. On the page for merchants, OpenAI says it is moving away from Instant Checkout as a standalone experience. Even so, the Help Center still mentions the feature for some eligible products and merchants.

In Shopify, ChatGPT is a discovery channel. Thus, the customer buys at the store’s own checkout, opened inside the app. The channel requires the store to sell to customers in the U.S., even if it is based in another country.

Does AI Mode checkout work for Brazilian ecommerce?

Not yet. On Google, checkout for shopping happens in AI Mode and Gemini, with Google Pay, and the store remains the seller. According to Merchant Center Help, the feature is available to select merchants. Products must also be eligible in the U.S., Canada or Australia. In May 2026, Google announced expansion to Canada, Australia and later the U.K., without mentioning Brazil. According to Google Search Help, buying in AI Mode is available only in English, for signed-in users in the U.S. Gemini Apps Help, on the other hand, puts Brazil on the list for shopping in the app, but without saying in which countries the Buy button appears.

How do products show up in AI Mode and Gemini?

Through the Shopping Graph, Google’s product database. Google documents two paths for the data of a store’s products: the Merchant Center feed and product structured data on the pages. In shopping searches, AI Mode and the Gemini app use this database to show products, reviews and where to buy. Brazil is on the list of countries with shopping in the Gemini app.

According to Gemini Apps Help, shopping in the app requires users to be 18 or older and to sign in with a personal Google Account. In April 2026, the Brazilian outlet Portal ClienteSA reported that Google had also brought AI Mode shopping features to Portuguese.

In its guide to generative AI features, Google says Merchant Center feeds help products appear in AI answers. Merchant Center Help also confirms that free listings work in Brazil, in reais (BRL). That is why Merchant Center is the entry point for ecommerce GEO on Google. What else Google asks for is in the guide on how AI Mode and AI Overviews choose their sources.

Google’s structured data documentation completes the picture. According to Google, product markup on the pages and a Merchant Center feed, together, maximize eligibility for product features in Search.

In the Gemini app, crawlers need extra care. This is because, according to Google, the Google-Extended token controls whether the site’s content can ground the app’s answers. Blocking it prevents that use without affecting Search. For editorial content, see how to show up in Gemini.

How to do GEO for ecommerce: catalog, feed and product pages

In GEO for ecommerce, start with the data, because it feeds all three storefronts. In other words, the same product needs the same name, price, stock and attributes on the website, in the feed and on marketplaces. Then work on the page: text that answers shopping questions and reviews the AI can summarize.

1. Allow the right crawlers. OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search and Googlebot for Search. Decide on Google-Extended carefully, because it affects the Gemini app.
2. Register the catalog in Merchant Center and turn on free listings.
3. Complete the feed with title, description, brand, GTIN, price, availability, images, shipping and return policy.
4. Mark up the pages with product structured data, with the same values as the feed.
5. Collect product reviews and send them to Google through the Product Ratings program.
6. Spell out the obvious in text: who the product is for, dimensions, material, compatibility and the differences between versions.
7. Turn category pages into guides that cover price range, use and comparisons between models.
8. Join the waitlist for OpenAI feeds if the store sells to the U.S. or wants to be ready for the expansion.

Finally, the guide to SEO and AI covers the technical foundation that applies to the whole store, with crawlers, rendering and indexing.

Do reviews and Google Shopping count in ecommerce GEO?

Yes, and reviews count on both ends. For example, OpenAI’s feed accepts the number of reviews and the product’s average rating. Google, on the other hand, sets a minimum. According to Merchant Center Help, ratings appear in Google Shopping and in ads only with at least 50 reviews across all products.

Google Shopping may also carry weight, even in ChatGPT. In March 2026, Search Engine Land published a Peec AI study of 43,000 products from ChatGPT carousels. More than 83% were among the top 40 organic Google Shopping results, compared with less than 11% on Bing. However, the study compares product titles, and OpenAI only mentions third-party data without naming it. The author works at Peec AI, which sells AI monitoring. Finally, the study does not say which country the searches came from and predates OpenAI’s March change.

Does selling on marketplaces help or hurt your own store?

It depends on where the brand wants the sale. When several stores sell the same item, ChatGPT may show a list of merchants. OpenAI says it ranks that list by availability, price, quality and by who is the maker or primary seller. Thus, for the brand that makes the product, that last criterion can favor its own store.

Cadastra and Similarweb estimated more than 6.1 million visits from ChatGPT to Brazil’s ten largest ecommerce sites. The period runs from January 2023 to August 2025. According to Exame, Mercado Livre leads, with 1.8 million. Cadastra provides digital marketing services, and the numbers are Similarweb estimates.

In GEO for ecommerce, keep the website’s price and stock in line with the marketplaces. Also, make it clear on the page that the brand is the manufacturer. According to OpenAI, ChatGPT’s review summaries come from reviews on public websites. Reviews left on open marketplaces may count toward them. See how reviews and marketplaces work as AI sources.

What do Nuvemshop, VTEX and Shopify offer for AI in ecommerce?

All three ecommerce platforms promote AI features, but most of them apply outside Brazil or only to ads. For example, Shopify brings the catalog to ChatGPT only for stores that sell to the U.S. Similarly, VTEX announced its integration with Google’s checkout for the U.S. Nuvemshop, on the other hand, highlights its integration with ChatGPT Ads.

Platform	What it promotes	Applies to stores that sell only in Brazil
Shopify	Catalog in ChatGPT and checkout on Google	No, requires selling to the U.S.
VTEX	Integration with Google’s UCP	No, announced for the U.S.
Nuvemshop	ChatGPT Ads, structured data and Google feed	Yes, for ads and the feed

For shopping checkout in AI Mode and Gemini, Shopify requires a store based in the U.S. and customers in the U.S. The VTEX announcement is from April 2026. On its blog, Nuvemshop says it delivers structured data and a Google feed already set up. All three sell the platform, so they have a commercial interest in the topic. For that reason, check each one’s documentation before deciding.

How do you measure sales that come from AI?

Measure ecommerce GEO in two layers. First, track presence with fixed shopping prompts, such as “melhor fone até R$ 500” (“best headphones under R$ 500”), repeated every month. Second, track visits and sales in GA4, in the AI Assistant channel. However, GA4 still counts clicks from AI Mode and AI Overviews as organic search.

According to PYMNTS, only 21% of Brazilian merchants can tell when a sale came from an AI platform. GA4 separates visits from ChatGPT and Gemini in the AI Assistant channel. The step-by-step is in the guide to AI traffic in GA4. The full protocol, with prompts, repetitions and regex, is in the guide on how to measure mentions, citations and traffic from AI.

For OpenAI’s feed, the documentation suggests an attribution parameter in the product URL, such as utm_medium=feed. With many products or clients, prompt collection moves to GEO tools. Agencies that serve several stores will find the service model in GEO for agencies.

What we found in 8 Portuguese-language guides on AI shopping

We analyzed 8 Portuguese-language pages that appear in searches for GEO for ecommerce, ChatGPT Shopping and products in ChatGPT. None explains how products get into shopping in AI Mode or Gemini. Only one mentions Merchant Center, and only as a comparison.

Four describe Instant Checkout, but none records the March 2026 change, when OpenAI began prioritizing the merchant’s checkout. Two mention OAI-SearchBot, while two others point only to GPTBot as OpenAI’s crawler. Finally, none discusses whether selling on marketplaces helps or hurts the store in AI answers.

Frequently asked questions

Main sources

• OpenAI, Powering Product Discovery in ChatGPT (2026).
• OpenAI Developers, product feed specification for ChatGPT (2026).
• Merchant Center Help, Universal Commerce Protocol and checkout on Google (2026).
• Gemini Apps Help, shopping in Gemini Apps (2026).
• Google Search Central, product structured data (2025).
• PYMNTS Intelligence, Global Digital Shopping Index: Brazil Playbook, with Visa Acceptance Solutions (2026).