How to get into AI shopping programs

Most merchants who ask how to sell on ChatGPT are asking a wider question: which AI shopping programs will take my products, and how do I get in? This guide covers the programs run by six owners: OpenAI, Google, Shopify, Amazon, Microsoft and Perplexity. This guide shows, for any platform, who qualifies, how to join, what each program reads and how to check that you are in.

Which platform runs your store?

Your platform and the country you sell to decide which programs you can join. Shopify stores selling to the US are already in several through Agentic Storefronts. Stores on other platforms join one owner at a time, usually by sending a product feed. Most programs are US-first today.

Every program, from each owner’s own pages:

Program	Who it is for	How to join	What it reads	Where to check
ChatGPT shopping (OpenAI)	Stores selling to US shoppers	Shopify and Etsy: nothing to do. Others: apply, then wait	Product feed, Shopify Catalog, your pages	No merchant dashboard published yet
Google free listings and AI Mode	Any store with a Merchant Center account	Create the account. Free listings are on by default	Merchant Center product data, crawled pages	Merchant Center, Search Console
Google checkout (UCP)	Selected merchants, US first	Technical work, interest form, selection	Merchant Center feed, your checkout API	UCP integration hub in Merchant Center
Shopify Agentic Storefronts	Eligible Shopify stores	On by default	Shopify Catalog, and Merchant Center for Google	Sales channels, then Agentic
Shopify Agentic plan	Brands without a Shopify online store	Sign up, verify the business, import products	Products you import, with links to your store	Sales channels, then Agentic
Microsoft Copilot	Any store for results. Checkout: English-language merchants selling to US buyers	Microsoft Merchant Center, or automatic on Shopify	Merchant Center feed, web pages	Microsoft Merchant Center
Amazon Shop Direct and Buy for Me	Stores outside Amazon, US shoppers	A feed through a listed syndicator, or email Amazon	Product feed	Shop Direct merchant page
Alexa for Shopping	Amazon sellers and Shop Direct stores, US shoppers	No sign-up described. It covers Amazon listings and Shop Direct	Listing details, reviews, Q&A (said of Rufus)	Your Amazon listings
Perplexity Merchant Program	Large retailers, per Perplexity’s 2024 announcement	Signup form	Product specs, platform integrations such as Shopify	Not published

Pick your situation to see which rows apply:

Which AI shopping programs fit my store

1. 1 Shopify store selling to the US

   Agentic Storefronts already sends eligible products to ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Meta. Google AI Mode and Gemini also need a US-based store and a Merchant Center account. Check Sales channels, then Agentic. Add Amazon Shop Direct through a feed if you want it.

2. 2 Another platform selling to the US

   Set up Google Merchant Center and Microsoft Merchant Center, apply to share a feed with OpenAI, and reach Amazon Shop Direct through a feed syndicator. Shopify's Agentic plan is a second route into several AI channels without moving your store.

3. 3 Selling outside the US

   ChatGPT shopping, Copilot Checkout, Shop Direct and Alexa for Shopping are US-only today. Google free listings work by country. Google checkout covers the US first, with Canada and Australia to follow. Meta through Shopify adds Canada and Mexico.

4. 4 Also selling on Amazon

   Alexa for Shopping covers your Amazon listings with no sign-up described. It also shows products from other stores through Shop Direct, which is how your own site gets in.

5. 5 Want checkout inside the assistant

   Eligible Shopify stores get direct checkout in Copilot and Meta by default, and Google's is still rolling out. On the Agentic plan it starts switched off. Elsewhere it is selective: Google picks UCP merchants, Copilot Checkout is opt-in through Stripe or PayPal or a pilot through Microsoft Merchant Center, and ChatGPT sends shoppers to your own site by default.

On Shopify, the Catalog requirements ask for the Starter plan or higher and a store not in private mode. In Sales channels, then Agentic, Shopify shows a product count next to Shopify Catalog, or an Ineligible warning with the reason. Our agentic storefronts guide covers settings and opt-outs. Brands without a Shopify online store can use the Agentic plan: verify the business, import products and link each one to its page on your store. Its plan page says there is no monthly fee, and you pay card rates when products sell.

How do you sell on ChatGPT?

If you sell through Shopify or Etsy, your catalog already reaches ChatGPT. Other merchants apply to share a product feed with OpenAI and join a waitlist. Shopping is live for US users only, and purchases finish on your own site or app.

OpenAI’s merchant page sets out the routes:

1. Shopify or Etsy. No application. On Shopify, the ChatGPT channel requires that you sell to US customers, but your store can be based elsewhere.
2. Any other platform. Apply on the merchant page. OpenAI says applicants join a waitlist, and its developer docs say feed onboarding is open to approved partners. OpenAI says it is building a self-serve merchant platform.
3. No feed at all. OpenAI says a feed is not required because ChatGPT also reads your site, but a feed gives you more control over how your products appear.

Once approved, you push the feed by SFTP, and OpenAI recommends a full snapshot at least daily. The feed spec requires nine fields per product, publicly accessible product and image URLs, and covers the US only in standard uploads. Our ChatGPT shopping guide lists the fields. OpenAI says there are no fees on purchases that start in ChatGPT, and its commerce policies exclude categories such as prescription-only medications, tobacco and supplements marketed for health effects.

How to check you are in: OpenAI publishes no merchant dashboard for organic results. Ask ChatGPT your shoppers’ questions and see whether your products appear.

How do you get your products on Google Shopping?

Create a Google Merchant Center account and add your products. New accounts are opted in to free listings, which can show your products at no cost on Search, Gemini, YouTube, Images and Lens. AI Mode has no extra requirements. Checkout in AI Mode is for selected merchants.

1. Merchant Center. Google calls it a free tool. Google can add products from your online store at sign-up, or you upload them, or your platform syncs them. Choose your business country carefully: it cannot be changed later.

2. Free listings. New accounts are opted in by default. Your products can then appear at no cost on Google Search, Maps, Gemini, YouTube, the Shopping tab, Google Images and Google Lens. In the US and many other countries you must also set up shipping. Google notes that opting in does not mean your products will be shown.

3. AI Mode and checkout. Google’s AI features page says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. It lists keeping your Merchant Center information up to date as a best practice. Checkout inside AI Mode and Gemini runs on the Universal Commerce Protocol, and Google says it is available to select merchants for now. The requirements start with a Merchant Center account in good standing with approved free listings, a return policy and a customer service contact. Each product opts in through an attribute that defaults to off. Google’s onboarding hub is rolling out gradually in the US, with Australia and Canada to follow. If a platform runs your store, Google tells you to ask the platform about its UCP plans. Our ACP vs UCP guide explains the protocol.

How to check you are in:

• Free listings status. In Merchant Center, go to Marketing, then Marketing methods, and read the Free listings card.
• Product problems. Open the Needs attention tab on the Products page.
• Clicks. Filter the Performance page for free listings. Search Console includes AI Mode and AI Overviews traffic in its Performance report under the Web search type, without a separate AI Mode figure.
• Coming next. Google said in May 2026 that Merchant Center would add AI performance insights for AI Mode, AI Overviews and Gemini in the US, Canada, Australia, India and New Zealand in the coming months.

Keep your page markup consistent with the feed. See product structured data.

What is Microsoft Merchant Center?

Microsoft Merchant Center is where you send Microsoft your product feed. Microsoft says Copilot uses both your web pages and that feed to surface products. Copilot Checkout is limited to English-language merchants selling to US buyers, and Shopify stores are enrolled automatically.

Microsoft’s agentic commerce page answers the merchant questions directly:

• Organic results. Microsoft uses information found on the web and the feed in Microsoft Merchant Center. Its January 2026 checkout announcement says Merchant Center is not required for checkout but helps inform organic Copilot results.
• Feeds. Microsoft made UCP-ready feeds in Merchant Center generally available in the US on April 21, 2026. On Shopify, the Microsoft Channel app syncs your catalog to Merchant Center, in English only for now.
• Checkout. Shopify merchants are enrolled automatically, with controls in the Shopify admin. For Stripe and PayPal customers it is opt-in. Merchants can also set it up in Microsoft Merchant Center with a UCP-compliant feed, which Microsoft marks as a pilot for select customers. Microsoft takes no commission today, gives no timeline for markets beyond the US, and you stay the merchant of record.

Microsoft’s help says what Copilot shows depends on what you provide. We found no Microsoft page on checking whether a product appears in Copilot.

How does Amazon Buy for Me work?

Buy for Me lets a US shopper buy, inside Amazon, a product sold on your own website. Amazon’s agent completes the purchase on your site, and you handle delivery and returns. It runs inside Shop Direct, which can list your products before you join through a feed.

Amazon has two programs, and they work differently.

Shop Direct and Buy for Me (your own store). Shop Direct shows US shoppers products Amazon does not sell and links to the merchant’s store. For some products, Buy for Me completes the purchase. Amazon said in March 2026 that Shop Direct included over 100 million products from more than 400,000 merchants. To join:

1. Ask your feed provider. Amazon names Feedonomics, Salsify and CEDCommerce as feed syndicators that sync catalog, pricing and inventory with Shop Direct.
2. If yours does not take part, email [email protected]. Amazon said a merchant portal with a direct feed was coming soon.
3. Plan for the order. Amazon says you receive the shopper’s name and address, and you manage delivery, returns, exchanges and customer service. Amazon’s Buy for Me launch post said brands could choose whether to participate.

Amazon’s post links a Shop Direct merchant page that covers feeds and opting out. Its crawler Amzn-SearchBot makes your content eligible for search experiences such as Alexa.

Alexa for Shopping (your Amazon listings). Amazon combined Rufus and Alexa+ into Alexa for Shopping for US customers. It searches Amazon’s store and, through Shop Direct, stores across the web. Amazon describes no separate sign-up for it. Amazon’s April 2026 seller blog, written about Rufus before the merge, says it searches product details, reviews and Q&A, and advises answering common questions in your descriptions. Our Alexa for Shopping guide covers what sellers control.

How do you get products on Perplexity?

In 2024 Perplexity announced a free Merchant Program for large retailers, joined through a signup form, and said its shopping draws on integrations including Shopify. We could not confirm the program page is live today. On every platform, let PerplexityBot crawl your product pages.

What Perplexity itself publishes is thin:

• Merchant Program. Its November 2024 announcement describes a free program for large retailers to share product specs through a signup form, and says shopping launched in the US first. Perplexity’s merchants page now shows a different product, so treat the program’s status as unconfirmed.
• Instant Buy. Its help center says US users can buy only from merchants compatible with its agentic checkout. It also says Perplexity is more likely to recommend merchants who give deeper product details, such as availability, reviews, pricing and specifications.
• Crawling. PerplexityBot surfaces and links sites in Perplexity search, and Perplexity says it is not used to train models.

Crawling is the route every program shares. OpenAI says sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links. Google’s crawler page says Storebot-Google rules apply to all Google Shopping surfaces, and that blocking Google-Extended does not affect inclusion in Google Search. Shopify adds that blocking crawlers does not stop Catalog data reaching the channels you have activated. Check your store here:

AI crawler access checker

Check whether 15 AI crawlers, from GPTBot to PerplexityBot, may read your site's pages.

Your website's address

For example yoursite.com.

Check my site

A quick check confirms you are a person, not a bot.

Descriptions checked 2026-10-13. We do not save the address or the result.

Open the full tool

Our AI crawlers guide shows which to allow.

Done when: for each owner whose program you qualify for, you have joined or applied, your feed or catalog shows no excluded products by mistake, you know where to check your status, and OAI-SearchBot, Googlebot, Storebot-Google, PerplexityBot and Amzn-SearchBot can read your product pages.

Joining makes your products eligible. It does not tell you whether the assistants recommend them. SourceVision covers that part: we ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity your shoppers’ questions many times and report how often you appear, with the range across runs. Then we propose fixes for your product pages, drafted only from facts you confirm, and nothing is applied to your store without your approval. SourceVision is in an invite-only beta.

Request an invite

Can I pay ChatGPT to promote my business?

Yes, but ads are separate from the programs in this guide. OpenAI says ChatGPT’s product results are selected independently and are not ads. Ads built from product feeds are a separate beta, and during it those feed products appear only in ads, not in organic conversations.

OpenAI’s shopping help says product results are not influenced by any OpenAI partnerships, and it ranks merchants on factors such as availability, price, quality and whether they are the maker or primary seller. Its feed ads page says ads feed products will not appear in organic conversations during the beta. Perplexity’s Instant Buy page says advertisers cannot pay to list products in its related products section.

So the programs get you eligible for organic results, and ads are a separate budget decision. Eligible is not the same as recommended: Shopify’s setup guide says each AI channel decides which products to show.

Next, measure whether the assistants actually name you. That is step 7 of the AI search guide, and our AI visibility check shows how to do it by hand.