🔥 SEOs Diners Club #197: The AI Shopping Revolution and the New Era of E-Commerce

Greetings,

Welcome to the 197th edition of SEOs Diners Club! This week, we're discussing a development that will fundamentally transform the e-commerce world: AI-powered shopping experiences. While ChatGPT and Perplexity are evolving into shopping assistants, Google is making its countermove with 50 billion product listings. Let's explore together what this competition means for the e-commerce sector and what it implies for brands.

The AI Shopping Revolution: The Great Race Between ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google Shopping

The e-commerce world has witnessed perhaps the biggest transformation of the last decade in just the past two weeks. ChatGPT and Perplexity have launched new shopping experiences that enable users to find, compare, and purchase products through conversational queries. But what's truly interesting is the counter-strategy Google has developed in response to this move. Now, let's examine in detail this three-way competition that will shape the future of the e-commerce market.

ChatGPT: Your Personal Shopping Researcher

OpenAI has added a new feature to ChatGPT called "Shopping Research." This feature transforms ChatGPT into a personalized product researcher. How does it work? Users describe their needs: "quiet cordless vacuum," "compare these strollers," or "gift for my art-loving nephew." ChatGPT asks clarifying questions, pulls price, feature, and review data from the open web, and generates a custom buyer's guide within minutes.

The most impressive aspect is how the system adapts using your preferences and ChatGPT's memory. As users mark "More like this" or "Not interested," selections are refined in real-time. The technical infrastructure is also quite robust: it runs on a custom GPT-5 mini model optimized for shopping tasks and is designed to pull reliable information from trusted sites.

Currently available on both web and mobile for free and paid ChatGPT plans, this feature offers "nearly unlimited" usage during the holidays. In the future, Instant Checkout integrations will allow direct purchases within ChatGPT for participating merchants.

Perplexity: Pioneer of Conversational Shopping

Perplexity has entered the scene with a slightly different approach. The platform, which launched a free shopping experience in the US, summarizes its core philosophy as follows: AI assistants should scale a shopper, not replace them. Users search by speaking (for example, "best winter jacket for San Francisco ferry commute to work"), and Perplexity maintains context while moving to relevant needs.

The system remembers preferences: if you like mid-century modern furniture or prefer minimalist running gear, future product cards are adapted accordingly. Instead of endless scrolling, it generates streamlined product cards containing only details connected to the user's stated intent.

One of Perplexity's biggest advantages is its partnership with PayPal. This integration brings fast, in-flow purchases while retailers remain the merchant of record. This means merchants still gain customer visibility, handle returns, and maintain the relationship. Perplexity claims that shoppers going through the conversational funnel have higher purchase intent and that instant checkout reduces abandonment.

However, an important note here: some early research shows that "higher intent" isn't always true, and LLM referrals have converted worse than Google so far. This shows we're still in the early stages and platforms need to work on conversion optimization.

Google Shopping: Countermove with 50 Billion Products

Google hasn't remained silent in response to ChatGPT and Perplexity's moves. The new AI shopping features announced on November 13 reveal Google's biggest advantage in this space: 50 billion product listings and deep ecosystem integration.

Conversational Shopping (AI Mode): Google has added conversational shopping to its search engine's AI Mode. Users can search with detailed descriptions: an initial search like "women's sweaters that can be worn with pants or dresses" can be modified with a follow-up like "more options in gray colors." The AI response is request-specific: a side-by-side chart if you're comparing specific items, or a stream of product image cards if you're looking for general suggestions.

"Let Google Call" - Agentic AI Calling: Perhaps the most interesting feature. Google's AI agent calls local stores to ask about products, stock, and sales information. The AI discloses to the store that it's an AI caller, and stores can opt out of robot calls. After the call, the user receives a summary via text or email. Initially rolling out in toys, health and beauty, and electronics categories.

Agentic Checkout - Automated Purchasing: Users select product, color, size, and set a target price. When the product drops below the target, AI pings the user, and upon confirmation, completes the transaction with Google Pay. Initial partners include Wayfair, Chewy, Quince, and some Shopify sellers.

Reshaping the E-Commerce Ecosystem

While these three platforms have different approaches, they're all targeting the same thing: becoming the starting point of the shopping journey. However, this competition will fundamentally change the e-commerce ecosystem.

Blow to Influencers and Review Sites: The traditional shopping journey was: get inspired by an influencer on TikTok or Instagram → read review sites like The Strategist or Wirecutter → purchase.

In the new world: search in Google AI Mode → compare → track price → purchase. The entire process is consolidated on a single platform.

What's even more interesting is that AI responses also pull content from TikTok and Reddit. This means all the content produced by influencers and communities eventually flows into Google's automated system and is presented to users summarized by AI. This means a serious traffic loss risk for content creators and review sites.

New Rules in Brand Visibility: In traditional SEO, the goal was to appear on the first page of search results. In the AI shopping era, the goal is to be included in AI recommendations. This requires completely different optimization. You must ensure your product information is correctly pulled by AI, review your content strategy considering conversational queries, and carefully monitor AI referral traffic.

Conversion Rates: Still Unclear: Perplexity claims that shoppers going through the conversational funnel have higher purchase intent. However, early data shows mixed signals. Some research indicates that LLM referral conversion rates aren't as high as Google yet. This means platforms need to carefully test and optimize this channel.

Google's Competitive Advantages

Google has some important advantages in this race. First, 50 billion product listings - an inventory competitors can't match. Second, ecosystem integration: search, maps, payment systems are already established. Third, agentic features: features like store calling and automated purchasing take the user experience one step further. Fourth, advertising revenue model: sponsored content is already in Google's DNA, so it can easily integrate AI shopping into its monetization model. Fifth, Gemini integration: Google's most powerful AI model is directly integrated into the shopping experience.

However, ChatGPT and Perplexity also have their advantages. ChatGPT's deep research focus and personalized guidance capabilities are valuable, especially for complex purchase decisions. Perplexity's PayPal integration and seamless checkout experience reduce friction.

Action Plan for E-Commerce Brands

What e-commerce brands need to do in response to this change:

1. Test on AI Platforms: Regularly test how your brand appears on ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode. Which of your products are being recommended? How are you compared to competitors?

2. Optimize Your Product Data: Ensure AI is pulling your product information correctly. Structured data (schema markup), detailed product descriptions, high-quality images, and up-to-date pricing information are critical.

3. Conversational Content Strategy: Review your content strategy for conversational queries. Target natural language queries like "what's the most comfortable running shoe for narrow feet?" instead of "best running shoes."

4. Prepare for Instant Checkout Integrations: As ChatGPT's Instant Checkout and Google's Agentic Checkout features become widespread, early participation in these integrations will provide an advantage.

5. Monitor AI Referral Traffic: Segment traffic from AI platforms in your analytics and carefully measure conversion rates. Which platforms convert better? Which product categories sell better through AI?

6. Community and Review Strategy: Strengthen your presence on platforms like Reddit, Quora, and TikTok. AIs pull content from these platforms, so your visibility there will indirectly reflect in AI recommendations.

The Future of Shopping Is Conversational

The AI shopping revolution doesn't just mean a new channel, but a restructuring of the entire e-commerce ecosystem. Influencers, review sites, traditional search engine optimization - all are redefining their place in this new world. The winners will be those who adapt early to this change, optimize visibility on AI platforms, and understand the conversational shopping experience.

Remember: users are no longer searching for products, they're talking to AIs. And AIs are deciding whether or not to recommend your brand. Learning the rules of this new game will be the key to e-commerce success in 2026.

Algorithm and Search Engine Updates

The search world was quite active this week. Here are the highlights:

1. The Persona Revolution in AI Search

As Growth Memo founder Kevin Indig and Amanda Johnson emphasized in their comprehensive analysis "Personas are critical for AI search", AI search engines now understand not just what we want, but who we are, what constraints we're searching under, and what types of evidence we trust. Personas, once forgotten in static PDFs adorned with demographic information, have now become the most critical element of SEO and content strategy. AI has forced a shift from intent optimization to identity and trust optimization. New-generation "LLM-ready" personas should include behavioral and contextual data such as the user's Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD), purchase triggers, budget constraints, trusted sources, and preferred content formats.

2. Google's Warning to Sites in "Bad State": "Sometimes You Need to Start Over"

Google's John Mueller stated that sites filled with low-quality AI content and "in a bad state" may not be salvageable simply by rewriting content with human hands. Mueller recommends treating this situation like "starting from scratch with a site without content" and fundamentally questioning what value the site will add to the web. He emphasizes that trying to salvage a domain with a bad history can take much longer than starting with a new domain. This is an important strategic warning, especially for sites that have tried to get quick results with low-quality content.

3. Do Background Videos Affect SEO?

In another statement, Mueller said that as long as page content loads first, large background-loading videos are unlikely to have a noticeable impact on SEO. What's important is delivering content to the user quickly without negatively affecting Core Web Vitals metrics. This is reassuring news, especially for sites using video in the hero area.

4. New Management Tools for Google Business Profiles

Great news for local businesses! Google has introduced post scheduling and multi-location publishing features for Google Posts. This way, you can plan your communication strategy in advance, especially during busy periods like holidays, and implement it consistently across all your locations with a single click.

5. Gary Illyes: "SEO Isn't Dead, It's Coevolving with Search"

Google's Gary Illyes gave a clear response to discussions about SEO being dead in the AI search era: "SEO isn't dead, it will continue to evolve with search as it has for the last 30 years." He emphasized that while this change is difficult, those who adapt will see the benefits first. This reminds us once again that we need to continuously update our strategies and understand new search dynamics.

AI World Developments

Artificial intelligence is transforming not just search, but the entire digital ecosystem.

1. Anthropic Opus 4.5: Arrives with Chrome and Excel Integrations

Anthropic announced the latest version of its flagship model, Opus 4.5, on November 24. This is the final model in the 4.5 series, following the launch of Sonnet 4.5 in September and Haiku 4.5 in October. Opus 4.5 made history as the first model to score over 80% on SWE-Bench verified. But what really stands out are the Claude for Chrome and Claude for Excel integrations. The Chrome extension is available to all Max users, while the Excel integration is available to Max, Team, and Enterprise users. For digital marketers, this means browser-based automation, data collection, competitive analysis, and Excel data analysis automation. Additionally, paid users get an "endless chat" feature - now conversations continue seamlessly when they hit the context window.

2. The Secrets Behind ChatGPT Citations: What Does New Data Say?

A comprehensive study by SE Ranking revealed the most important factors affecting ChatGPT's selection of content as a source. Unsurprisingly, referring domain count tops the list. Other important findings:

Authority Factors:

• ✅ High Correlation: High referring domain count, high Domain Trust

• ❌ Low Correlation: .gov/.edu extension alone isn't sufficient

Content Factors:

• ✅ High Correlation: 2900+ word deep content, expert citations, freshness

• ❌ Low Correlation: Question-formatted titles, FAQ schema

Technical Factors:

• ✅ High Correlation: Fast FCP (First Contentful Paint)

• ❌ Low Correlation: Excessively fast INP (Interaction to Next Paint)

Social Factors:

• ✅ High Correlation: High brand awareness on Quora and Reddit

Optimization Factors:

• ✅ High Correlation: URLs that broadly describe the topic

• ❌ Low Correlation: Keyword-focused URLs and titles

This research shows that fundamental SEO principles (authority, quality content, speed) also apply to AI visibility, but old tactics like keyword stuffing no longer work.

3. ChatGPT Answers Now More Visual

OpenAI announced that ChatGPT answers now include more images from the web. Images will be shown at the most relevant point in the text and can be viewed with their source when clicked. This is proof of how multimodal search has become. Now not just our text, but also our images need to be discoverable by AI.

Practical SEO Tips

Actionable tips you can take immediately based on this week's developments:

• Test AI Shopping Platforms: If you have an e-commerce site, test how your products appear on ChatGPT Shopping Research, Perplexity AI Shopping, and Google AI Mode. Which competitors are being recommended? Why?

• Create "LLM-Ready" Personas: Identify not just your customers' demographics, but their roles, challenges they face, budgets, trusted sources, and preferred content formats (e.g., tables, videos, case studies). Shape your content according to these personas.

• Prioritize Visual SEO: Ensure all your images are high-quality, properly named, have alt text, and are marked with structured data when possible. Test which images appear by querying about your brand on ChatGPT.

• Build Your Authority in Communities: If your site's backlink profile isn't strong yet, actively answer questions on platforms like Quora and Reddit and demonstrate your expertise. This is an effective way to gain ChatGPT's trust.

• Create Conversational Content: Instead of keyword-focused, narrow URLs, try using URLs and titles that express the topic more broadly and descriptively. Target natural language queries: "affordable CRM solutions for small businesses" instead of "best CRM."

Closing and Call to Action

Artificial intelligence is redefining search engines and e-commerce every day. Understanding this change rather than resisting it, and proactively adapting our strategies, will always keep us one step ahead. Remember, the best strategy, no matter how much technology changes, always comes from understanding the user. Now users are talking to AIs, and AIs are deciding whether or not to recommend your brand.

If you want to adapt your business's SEO and content strategy to this new era and increase your visibility on AI search engines and shopping platforms, we're always here with customized solutions at Stradiji. Don't hesitate to contact us to grab a coffee and discuss potential collaborations.

Have a great week!

Mert Erkal

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