Great for merchants, marketers, or anyone curious about how to get their products noticed via ChatGPT’s new product-discovery features.
**Introduction**
With ChatGPT evolving into more than just a conversational AI, OpenAI has introduced a game-changing feature: product recommendations inside ChatGPT’s search experience. This opens a direct and accessible channel for merchants to get discovered through natural conversation-style queries, no ads required.
**What’s New?**
When users express shopping intent, for example, asking “gifts for someone who loves cooking” or “best noise-cancelling headphones under £200” ChatGPT can now surface relevant products directly, organically and independently of paid promotions. These recommendations are clearly cited and linked to the source website.
**How It Works: OAI-SearchBot to the Rescue**
ChatGPT uses a dedicated crawler, OAI‑SearchBot, to discover and index merchant content. To maximise your visibility:
Ensure you're not blocking OAI‑SearchBot, check your robots.txt file and allow access.
This enables ChatGPT to surface and cite your product pages when they match user queries.
**Why It Matters for Merchants**
Being discoverable in ChatGPT offers unique advantages:
Organic exposure: No paid placements, just relevance and quality.
Conversational reach: Customers discover your products through natural language queries.
Drive traffic: Clickable links with built-in referral tagging (utm_source=chatgpt.com) help accurately track the impact in your analytics.
WIRED
**Best Practices for Visibility**
To really stand out, merchants should:
Open up to OAI‑SearchBot:
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /
Utilise structured product data:
Include schema.org/Product markup with details like price, colour, stock, materials.
Semantic clarity helps ChatGPT understand and match your product effectively.
Blend content for humans and machines:
Human layer: Write compelling, benefit-led descriptions that engage your audience.
Machine layer: Use clear bullet points, structured Q&A, spec lists, and schema markup to aid AI discovery.
Track your ChatGPT-driven traffic using analytics to measure effectiveness.
Submit interest for product feeds: OpenAI is developing a direct product‑feed intake system.
**Final Thoughts**
ChatGPT’s product-discovery integration marks a paradigm shift in eCommerce discovery. Instead of traditional keyword-based searches, users now engage with AI to get tailored product recommendations in natural language. For merchants, this means crafting both reader-friendly and AI-friendly content is more crucial than ever.
By allowing OAI-SearchBot access, optimising your product pages semantically, and preparing for feed submission systems, you position your brand to be surfaced directly inside users’ conversations with ChatGPT, even if they never land on your site first.