In 2025, CRM platform Omnisend reported that 65% of customers were using AI Search Engines like ChatGPT as part of the product discovery and purchasing experience. What’s more, they found that 25% of customers were going to those tools before Google.
Since that report was published, Shopify has rolled out a number of features and integrations that enable Shopify stores to make the most of AI search tools. With AI enabling customers to bypass the sea of Amazon and Etsy stores that typically make the shopping experience frustrating, brands need their ecommerce stores to be optimised for AI SEO to ensure they’re adapting to changing customer buying behaviours. Let’s look at the state of Agentic Ecommerce and uncover exactly what your business needs to be doing to show up in the AI search results you should be.
What is Agentic Commerce?
Agentic commerce is a new method of online shopping, where a section of the buying experience is guided by an AI agent such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Microsoft CoPilot, or Google Gemini. With the ability to research, compare, and even purchase goods on their behalf, these tools make the buying experience more personalised, increasing the speed and likelihood of a customer making a purchase in the first place. In fact, early data suggests AI-generated product recommendations drive 4.4 times higher conversion rates than traditional search, according to McKinsey.
Agentic Commerce works through conversational queries between a customer and an AI Agent, leading many to label the processes of optimising your ecommerce store for AI discovery as “Conversational SEO”. Whilst there’s some crossover, AI SEO - or Conversational SEO - differs from traditional search engine optimisation strategies, in that it changes how products are discovered by the search tools we use and which products are presented to a customer.
Taking this a step further, in December 2025 Shopify announced the launch of “Agentic Storefronts,” which integrate a built-in checkout into the search results of AI language models without a customer having to leave their conversation. For Shopify stores, the potential for additional conversions from agentic Storefronts is huge if you can make the most of it.
Agentic Storefronts are turned on as standard for all Shopify Sites (although you will have to ensure some functionalities are enabled, more on that later on), but this doesn’t make an AI tool more likely to discover or recommend your brand over others - you still need to make the AI search optimisations that make your site discoverable.
Why is AI Shopping Important to Your Shopify Store?
AI shopping is important to your ecommerce store in the same way that any major business change has been important to any business across time. If you want to stay on the forefront, and keep getting new customers, your ecommerce store needs to adapt to how those customers are discovering new products. Preparing for Agentic Shopping and investing in AI and SEO strategies will keep you ahead of competitors - much like traditional SEO lets you show up before your rivals on Google.
Agentic commerce represents the most significant shift in retail since the move online. And the brands that prepare with AI SEO strategies will capture value as the market matures.
Which leads us on to the next question asked when people hear the phrase “AI SEO”...
What are The Differences Between AI SEO and Classic SEO?
It’s a natural question to ask. Whilst AI SEO is the shiny new toy for us in the ecommerce world, people are still going to Google and discovering products the “old-fashioned” way. But the rise in importance of AI SEO has made business owners wonder whether their time spent on SEO has given them a leg up when it comes to Agentic Ecommerce, or if they will be starting from scratch.
Well, to those wary business owners, the good news is that AI SEO isn’t too different from the tried and tested SEO practices that have driven discovery for brands for years. And what works for Google, Bing, & Yahoo, largely works for ChatGPT, and Google Gemini.
Like traditional SEO, AI SEO is an ongoing process, and AI tools will measures content quality, brand credibility and a ton of other factors to produce the best results. So, let’s look at how you can optimise your site for AI search results.
The AI SEO Strategies for Ecommerce Stores
Conversational SEO - Content for AI SEO
Unlike a Google Search, due to the way users interact with AI models an AI search makes use of more conversational and natural language. Where you may type “Leather Handbags” into Google, the equivalent search in ChatGPT might be “I’m looking for a new Leather Handbag”.
Taking this a step further, a user will provide more info as the question string evolves, potentially providing a price range, preferences, and asking for a product that fulfils a specific problem, such as “Does the product use vegan or real leather?”
For this reason, pages that answer these more conversational queries are being quoted more in AI-led searches. It requires answering questions in plain, simple language that both AI and humans can easily understand.
Some ways to tailor your site for Conversational SEO include adding FAQ sections to product and collection pages, adding tailored rich text blocks to landing pages, and writing blogs that detail how products can solve common customer challenges.
It’s important not to lose sight of traditional SEO Content strategies here. Conversational SEO is more of an extension of your traditional SEO work, and you should still be writing your content with the target keywords you want to rank against in mind.
Markup Schema for AI SEO
AI tools often use external sources to create a more holistic response to customer queries, and frequently cite Reddit and listicles for information.
This fact led many people to believe that the more technical aspects of their store didn’t need as much attention as they had in the past, and that prioritising their brand perception off-site was best, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Whilst AI does use off-site data, it heavily relies on your site’s structured markup schema to traverse and make sense of the content on your site. In fact, if an AI Search Engine can’t read the content on your site, it’s not going to spend time trying to understand it, it’s going to move on.
For many, ecommerce is a creative venture, which is why so many ecommerce sites have Markup schema that can be labelled as OK at best. Shopify provides some markup schema out of the box through its CMS, but to best position your site for AI search results, you’ll need to take it a step further.
If you’re unsure of how your markup schema is displaying, you can use online tools like Google’s Rich Results Test or Schema Markup Validator to check. If you’ve never touched your markup schema before, keep it simple. And focus on Product, Offer, and Review Schema first, and ensure there’s no duplication of tags. Much like your SEO, you can build upon your markup Schema over time. If it feels overwhelming, partnering with an ecommerce digital marketing agency can ensure your technical foundation is flawless.
Site Speed for AI SEO
It’s always been a key player in your ranking position on Google, and indeed, your Site Speed remains a key player in how AI tools generate results. If your site is slow to load, has a high drop-off rate, or is broken, you risk dropping off the discovery journey at the final moment - especially if it’s on mobile.
The main culprits for a slow ecommerce site are going to be code overheads and large file sizes.
Code Over Heads
If you use a lot of integrations, your site is relying heavily on third-party code, which it might not need. Look at any opportunity to cut down on integrations, or even replace them with a built-in solution.
File Sizes
You may think a large file size is best because it means a higher quality image or video, but in the world of SEO, keeping files as small as possible is key.
If you need to check your page speed, use tools like Google Page Speed Insights. As a leading ecommerce agency, UK brands trust, we recommend aiming for a score above 80 to ensure AI agents (and humans) don't bounce.
Citations and Digital PR for AI SEO
Getting your name out there is just as important as ever. Just as a web user consults many sources to shape their opinion, an AI tool will look into off-site citations, validated resources, and backlinks in order to find the best option.
Authority and rankings are for more than just ranking on Google. If you’re mentioned across partner sites, industry blogs, and even in forum discussions, your credibility amongst AI tools is sure to receive a big boost.
To find gaps in where your site is and isn’t referenced compared to your competitors, the best route is to actively use AI tools to analyse which citations, sources, and references are appearing in AI-generated responses for their key product categories, much like the competitor gap analysis you can do for SEO.
Reviewing where competitors are being cited helps identify gaps and opportunities, whether that is earning coverage, improving content depth, or strengthening off-site signals that support AI visibility.
How Do You Track AI SEO?
As AI-driven discovery becomes more mainstream, brands need visibility into how and where they appear in AI-generated responses.
You can easily see how many people are making it to your store through AI search tools by consulting Google Analytics’ referral traffic tool, but when it comes to checking how often you’re being mentioned, you need some more specific tools.
SEMrush has an AI Visibility toolkit, offered as an add-on to its main plan, which you can use to check AI visibility mentions and more. Using both of these insights can help your team identify gaps, validate optimisation efforts, and prioritise actions that improve AI-driven discovery over time.
How Do You Track Agentic Commerce?
Tracking Agentic Commerce is going to become crucial for Ecommerce businesses. Currently, ChatGPT is the only AI agent that takes a referral fee from purchases made through agentic storefronts, but it’s only a matter of time before this is true across the board. This makes tracking the percentage of Agentic Commerce-enabled purchases crucial.
Within Shopify, you can filter by sales channels and see the total number of orders made through agentic channels, and even filter by specific tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and so on.
With these reports, you may spot trends in which products are being recommended and more, letting you see where your focus needs to be placed.
Getting Your Store Ready for Agentic Commerce - A Guide
The commercial implications of agentic commerce extend far beyond a new sales channel. This represents a fundamental restructuring of how products are discovered, how buying decisions are made and how customer relationships are maintained.
Agentic Commerce isn’t available to all Shopify Stores just yet, but to those with the capability, it’s turned on by default. If you want to bypass Shopify’s waiting list though, there are some things you can do.
Structure Your Product Data
AI agents rely on clean, consistent, structured information to make accurate decisions. When product data is fragmented or inconsistent, agents struggle to interpret offerings, assess value or communicate reliably.
This means that every aspect of every product variant should have a valid GTIN (UPC/EAN), and that all attributes need to be standardised. For example, if a product colour is listed as “Slate” and not a hex code or standardised colour, an AI may not recognise it.
Ensure API Readiness
AI tools will need programmatic access to inventory, pricing, checkout and fulfilment information. If your ecommerce platform doesn't expose this data through robust APIs, agents cannot transact with you.
For Shopify merchants, the platform handles much of this complexity through Agentic Storefronts. But even Shopify brands should audit their data feeds, ensure pricing rules are consistent and verify that inventory syncs accurately across channels.
Custom platforms face more work, but implementation requires investment in API development, testing, and ongoing maintenance.
The AI Shopping Shift Has Already Begun
AI SEO is not a new discipline, and if you’re an ecommerce owner with your wits about you, you’ll already be taking the steps to position your store for AI discovery and making changes to your SEO strategies to accommodate.
Similarly, whilst it may be in its earliest stages, Agentic Commerce is already here, and will never be less sophisticated than it is right now. The protocols and capabilities launching now are just the beginning and we only expect Agentic Commerce to grow. AI agents are becoming a primary interface between consumers and commerce. The question isn't whether to adapt, but how quickly you can.
Cake Agency x AI SEO
As a specialist ecommerce agency, we’ve been following the evolution of AI Shopping since the first protocols emerged, and we’re implementing strategies in our development and SEO practices that prepare brands for the future.
Whether you're looking for an ecommerce marketing agency to audit your current setup, a digital marketing agency with ecommerce expertise to build your AI SEO strategy from scratch, or simply want to understand what Agentic Commerce means for your business, contact us! We’d love to hear from you.
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