Is Your Brand Being Recommended by ChatGPT? Here's How to Find Out.

Your customers are changing how they discover products. Instead of scrolling through Google results, they're increasingly asking AI tools what to buy, which brands to trust and where to shop. The question is: is your brand part of the conversation?

Imagine someone asks ChatGPT:

“What's the best protein powder for someone starting strength training?”

Or:

“Can you recommend a premium alcohol-free drink for a dinner party?”

Or even:

“Which healthy meal delivery subscriptions are worth trying in the UK?”

These are valuable moments of purchasing intent. The customer isn't necessarily searching for a specific brand. They're asking for advice.

And the brands that appear in those answers have an opportunity to reach customers before they've even visited a website.

Welcome to the evolving world of AI discovery.

From Search Results to Recommendations

For years, ecommerce brands have invested in search engine optimisation (SEO) to improve their visibility on Google.

The fundamentals are familiar: strong technical foundations, relevant content, authoritative backlinks and well-optimised product pages.

Those things still matter enormously.

But AI-powered discovery introduces another dimension.

Rather than simply presenting a list of websites, tools such as ChatGPT can help customers compare products, explore options and narrow down their purchasing decisions.

A customer might ask:

“What's a good natural energy drink without loads of sugar?”

And follow up with:

“Which of those can I buy in the UK?”

Then:

“Which one would you recommend for running?”

The discovery journey becomes a conversation.

For brands, that means visibility is no longer just about where you rank for a particular keyword. It's also about whether AI systems can find, understand and confidently reference your brand and products when answering relevant questions.

This is where Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) comes in.

What Is GEO, and How Is It Different From SEO?

GEO is the practice of improving how easily AI-powered search and answer engines can discover, understand and reference your brand.

SEO and GEO aren't competing strategies. They overlap significantly.

Strong technical SEO, accessible content, clear product information and genuine brand authority all help create the foundations for AI discovery.

The difference is in how customers encounter that information.

With traditional search, a customer might type “best vegan protein powder UK” and explore the results.

With AI discovery, they might describe their goals, preferences, dietary requirements and budget, then ask for a recommendation.

Your brand needs to be relevant to that broader conversation, not just a single search phrase.

And while there's no guaranteed formula for getting recommended by ChatGPT, there are practical ways to improve your visibility.

1. Start by Asking ChatGPT the Questions Your Customers Ask

The simplest place to begin is with some research.

Open ChatGPT and try asking the kinds of questions your potential customers might use when researching your product category.

Importantly, don't start by mentioning your brand.

You want to understand whether your business appears naturally in relevant recommendations.

For example, a sports nutrition brand could test:

• What are the best protein powder brands in the UK?

• Which protein powders are good for beginners?

• Can you recommend a protein powder for muscle recovery?

• What should I look for when choosing a whey protein?

• Which UK sports nutrition brands are worth considering?

A premium drinks brand might ask:

• What are the best mixers for a gin and tonic?

• Which tonic water brands use natural ingredients?

• What are some premium alcohol-free drinks for entertaining?

• Which drinks brands would you recommend for a summer party?

Look at which brands appear, how they're described and whether the answers reference supporting sources.

Then test more specific questions relating to your products, ingredients, benefits and audiences.

A Word of Caution

ChatGPT responses aren't fixed search rankings.

Answers can vary depending on the wording of the question, conversation context, model, available search capabilities and other factors.

One appearance doesn't mean you're consistently visible, and one omission doesn't mean your brand is invisible.

Think of this as an initial discovery exercise, not a definitive ranking report.

For a more meaningful picture, repeat relevant prompts over time, use a consistent methodology and compare results across different AI platforms.

2. Check Whether AI Is Already Sending Customers to Your Website

The next question is whether AI discovery is translating into website visits.

If you're using Shopify, you can investigate traffic coming from AI-powered platforms through your analytics and reporting.

Start by reviewing your acquisition reports and looking for referring sources associated with services such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and other AI discovery tools.

In GA4, explore your traffic acquisition data and look for referral sources such as chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai.

Depending on your Shopify reporting setup, you may also have access to AI-related referral insights.

What should you be looking for?

• How much traffic is coming from AI platforms?

• Which landing pages are receiving those visits?

• Are visitors exploring products or leaving immediately?

• How does their engagement compare with other acquisition channels?

• Are those sessions generating add-to-carts, purchases or revenue?

Don't just focus on visitor numbers.

A relatively small volume of highly qualified traffic can still be commercially valuable.

Important: AI Traffic Isn't Always Easy to Attribute

Not every visit influenced by AI will appear neatly as an AI referral.

Customers might discover your brand in ChatGPT, then search for it on Google, type your URL directly or return later through another channel.

Some referrals may also lose their original attribution.

That means analytics can help you measure identifiable AI-driven visits, but they won't capture every purchase influenced by an AI recommendation.

3. Make Sure AI Can Understand What You Actually Sell

This is where your website foundations become particularly important.

Imagine your product page has beautiful photography, a clever product name and a short paragraph of lifestyle copy.

It might look fantastic.

But does it clearly explain what the product is, who it's for, what makes it different and why someone might choose it?

AI-powered systems need accessible, understandable information to identify relevant products.

And, conveniently, so do your customers.

Review your product pages for:

• Clear product names and descriptions.

• Specific benefits, features and use cases.

• Ingredients, materials, specifications or nutritional information where relevant.

• Answers to common customer questions.

• Transparent pricing and availability.

• Relevant product comparisons and buying guidance.

For example, a product described simply as “The Ultimate Daily Essential” gives very little context.

A description that clearly identifies it as a plant-based protein powder, explains its nutritional benefits and identifies its intended audience provides much more useful information.

The goal isn't to write robotic, keyword-heavy content for AI.

It's to make your products genuinely easy to understand.

4. Don't Overlook Structured Data

Structured data, often implemented using Schema.org vocabulary, helps search engines interpret the information on your website.

For ecommerce brands, relevant structured data can include:

• Product information.

• Pricing and availability.

• Reviews and ratings, where eligible.

• Organisation and brand information.

• Breadcrumb navigation.

• Articles and recipes.

Shopify themes may already include some structured data, but implementations vary.

It's worth checking that the information is accurate, complete and consistent with what's visible on the page.

For example, product structured data shouldn't show an outdated price or availability status.

Structured data is not a magic switch that makes ChatGPT recommend your products. Different AI systems use different retrieval and interpretation methods.

But well-implemented structured data supports clearer machine-readable information and strong technical SEO foundations.

5. Build Content Around Real Customer Questions

This is one of the biggest opportunities for ecommerce brands.

Traditional SEO strategies often focus heavily on product and category keywords.

But AI discovery frequently begins with a question, a problem or a recommendation request.

Customers might not know which product they want yet.

They know what they're trying to achieve.

For example:

“What should I eat before a morning workout?”

“How do I make an authentic pesto pasta?”

“What's the difference between whey protein and plant protein?”

“How can I reduce sugar without giving up fizzy drinks?”

These questions create opportunities for useful, relevant content.

Think beyond product descriptions.

Consider buying guides, educational articles, FAQs, comparisons, recipes and expert advice.

Content That Works Harder

For food and drink brands, recipe content is a particularly good example.

A well-structured recipe can help customers discover new ways to use a product, attract organic search traffic and provide useful information for AI-powered answers.

The strongest content connects genuine customer needs with relevant products.

Not every article needs to sell something directly.

Sometimes, helping someone solve a problem is the first step towards earning their trust.

6. Your Brand Reputation Matters Beyond Your Own Website

Here's something brands sometimes overlook.

AI-powered answers can draw on information from multiple sources, not just your website.

That means what other websites say about your brand can contribute to how it is understood and represented.

Relevant sources might include independent product reviews, editorial coverage, retailer listings, industry publications and reputable third-party recommendations.

If your brand has little presence beyond its own website, there may be fewer independent signals supporting its credibility.

This is why digital PR, authoritative backlinks, consistent brand information and genuine customer advocacy remain valuable.

The objective isn't to manufacture mentions or publish endless AI-generated articles.

It's to build a recognisable brand with a credible digital footprint.

That means creating products people genuinely recommend, earning relevant coverage and making sure the information published about your business is accurate.

7. Make Sure Your Shopify Store Is Technically Accessible

Even the best content won't achieve its potential if important parts of your website are difficult to access.

A technical audit should review whether search engines and relevant AI crawlers can access your public content, whether your pages can be indexed appropriately and whether critical information is available in rendered HTML.

Some useful areas to investigate include:

• Robots.txt rules and unintended crawler restrictions.

• Canonical tags and duplicate URLs.

• JavaScript-dependent content that may not be easily accessible to crawlers.

• Internal linking between collections, products and editorial content.

• XML sitemaps and indexability.

• Page performance and accessibility.

• Consistency between visible content and structured data.

Shopify provides a strong starting point for many of these fundamentals, but themes, apps, customisations and legacy implementations can introduce complications.

It's also important to distinguish between traditional search crawlers, AI search crawlers and crawlers used for model training. They don't all serve the same purpose.

Allowing a crawler access does not guarantee that your content will be retrieved, cited or recommended.

8. Measure Progress, Not Just Mentions

Once you've established a baseline, the next step is ongoing measurement.

We'd recommend tracking a combination of AI visibility and traditional ecommerce performance.

What to measure	Why it matters
Brand appearances in relevant AI answers	Indicates how often you're being surfaced in your test set
AI citations and linked sources	Helps identify which pages and publishers support visibility
AI referral traffic	Shows identifiable visits from AI platforms
Landing page engagement	Helps assess the quality of that traffic
Conversions and revenue	Connects visibility with commercial performance
Non-branded organic search visibility	Provides a broader view of discoverability

The most useful insights come from looking at these signals together.

A brand might see more mentions without an immediate increase in traffic.

Another might attract fewer visits but generate stronger purchase intent.

Neither tells the whole story in isolation.

And importantly, don't abandon traditional SEO metrics. Google search, organic traffic and technical site health remain essential parts of the bigger picture.

So, Is Your Brand Ready for AI Discovery?

The good news is that improving AI visibility doesn't mean throwing away everything you've already invested in.

In many cases, the biggest opportunities come from doing the fundamentals better.

Clearer product information. Stronger technical foundations. More useful content. Better structured data. A more credible brand presence.

These are improvements that benefit customers and traditional search performance as well as AI discovery.

At twotwentyseven, we're helping ecommerce brands understand what this changing landscape means for their websites, from technical Shopify audits and structured data improvements to content strategy, GEO and conversion optimisation.

Because being discovered is only part of the opportunity.

The real goal is to turn that discovery into meaningful customer relationships and commercial growth.

Want to Know How Visible Your Brand Is to AI?

If you're wondering whether ChatGPT and other AI-powered platforms are recommending your products, we can help you find out.

Our Shopify SEO and AI visibility reviews explore your technical foundations, product content, structured data and opportunities to improve discoverability.

Get in touch with twotwentyseven to find out how your ecommerce store could work harder in the age of AI-powered shopping.