AI Commerce: how your store shows up when someone asks AI what to buy
When a shopper asks which product to buy, AI doesn't return ten links. It returns a short list. AI Commerce measures whether your store makes that list, in what position, and where the click goes.
Short answer
To know how your online store shows up in AI, you need to measure three things: whether AI names you when someone asks what to buy, where the link goes when it names you, and whether it can read your product pages. AI Commerce shows this with the AI Shelf (how many answers include you, as "k of n", and in what position), Destination (your store, a reseller or marketplace, or unattributed) and a readability analysis of your product pages. On "selling in ChatGPT": as of September 2026, OpenAI's merchant program is available only in the United States. Outside the US, the work today is getting AI to name your store and link to it.
AI Shelf: whether AI names you, and in what position
An AI answer to "which refrigerator should I buy?" works like a store shelf: a few products, in an order. The AI Shelf measures two things across the shopping questions in your category:
- Incidence: how many answers name you, always shown as "k of n". A 25% can be 1 of 4 or 250 of 1,000: the number is the same, the evidence is not.
- Position: where you appear in the list when you are named.
The questions are generated in your market's language, name your country, and are asked to the five engines Refractia measures: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Google AI (AI Overviews) and Muse AI, Meta's model behind Meta AI.
Destination: who AI sends the sale to
Being named by AI isn't enough if the link goes somewhere else. When AI mentions you, Destination classifies where the link points:
| Destination | What it means |
|---|---|
| Your store | The link goes to your own online store. |
| Reseller or marketplace | The link goes to a third party that sells your product. |
| Unattributed | The link doesn't reveal who is selling. |
The third category exists for honesty. A link to a marketplace listing, with no other data, could be your official store or a reseller. Counting it as yours would inflate your own channel; counting it as a reseller would inflate the leakage to third parties. Both options invent the missing fact, so that link is never counted as yours or as a reseller's: it is reported separately.
Readability of your product pages
The third part depends entirely on you: whether AI can read your product pages. To recommend a product, an engine needs to understand what it is, what it costs and whether it is available, and that has to be on the page in a form a crawler can extract.
It goes hand in hand with the GEO audit and Technical Workshop: if your CDN serves the AI bot a challenge page, it doesn't matter how complete the product page is.
Which AI shopping surfaces are open in your country
AI Commerce includes an eligibility card per country. It keeps you from chasing closed doors: telling a store in Argentina that it doesn't appear in ChatGPT's shopping program is true, but useless, because that program doesn't exist in its country.
| Surface | Status as of September 2026 |
|---|---|
| OpenAI merchant program (ChatGPT) | United States only. |
| Perplexity merchant program | United States only. |
| Copilot merchant program (Microsoft) | United States only. |
| Google Merchant Center free listings | Live in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. |
These are dated facts about third-party programs, and they change. Verify them before making a decision.
Perplexity and Copilot appear on the card as shopping programs, but they are not among the engines Refractia measures. For a store in Latin America, Google Merchant Center free listings are today the feed-based shopping surface it can actually get into.
What to do with each result
- Low incidence on the AI Shelf: look at which stores and which sources appear in your place. If AI relies on comparisons or reviews where you are missing, the work starts there.
- The click goes to resellers: AI knows you, but it doesn't send the sale to your store. Check that your product pages are readable and that the sources naming you link to your site.
- Many unattributed links: this is not a conclusion, it is missing data. Treat it as a limit of the measurement, not as a loss or a sale.
- Hard-to-read product pages: this is the fix that depends only on your team, which makes it a good first step.
- Your country has an open surface: if you sell in one of the countries where Google Merchant Center free listings are live, uploading your product feed is a concrete way in.
Which brands it is for
AI Commerce switches on only for brands declared as online stores. A brand that doesn't sell online sees nothing of this module. If you run an ecommerce business, also look at which sources AI cites about your category in Influence Sources, and at how Refractia works with different kinds of brands in Solutions.
Frequently asked questions
Can I sell directly inside ChatGPT?
As of September 2026, OpenAI's merchant program is available only in the United States. Outside the US, what you can work on is getting ChatGPT to name your store and link to it when someone asks what to buy.
How does my online store show up in AI answers?
It depends on whether AI names you in the shopping questions of your category, in what position, and where the link goes. AI Commerce measures this in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Google AI and Muse AI.
What is the AI Shelf?
It measures how many shopping answers name your store, expressed as k of n, and where you appear in the list.
Why doesn't a marketplace link count as my sale?
Because a link to a marketplace listing doesn't say who is selling: it could be your official store or a reseller. Instead of guessing, it is reported as unattributed.
Which AI shopping surfaces are open in Latin America?
As of September 2026, Google Merchant Center free listings are live in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. The merchant programs of OpenAI, Perplexity and Copilot are United States only.
Keep reading
See whether AI names your store
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