What AI Shopping Means for Your Shopify Catalog

The way customers discover products is changing, and AI is rapidly becoming part of that journey.

Our very own Vice President Zac Cherin recently sat down with Andrew Eastridge, Senior Solutions Engineer at Shopify, to talk about where agentic commerce is headed, what Shopify is seeing firsthand, and what merchants should be doing now to make their products more discoverable. Watch the full conversation below, or keep reading for the highlights.

From Search to Conversation

According to Shopify, AI-driven orders on the platform grew 15x in 2025. Andrew pointed out that Fenty Beauty, for example, saw traffic from ChatGPT increase 2–3x over the past year.

Those numbers point to a much broader shift in how customers are finding products. Instead of typing a few keywords into Google and clicking through search results, more shoppers are having detailed conversations with AI agents. A search for “best moisturizer” can become a request for the best moisturizer for a specific skin concern, under $50, that can arrive tomorrow.

Today, most of that behavior falls under conversational commerce: AI helps shoppers research products and narrow their options, but the customer still makes the final decision and completes the purchase. Agentic commerce takes that behavior a step further, allowing the customer to delegate the task to an agent that can research, select, and ultimately purchase a product on their behalf.

Shopify sees agentic commerce as where shopping is headed. As product discovery moves into these new channels, a big question for merchants is what that means for the strategies they already rely on to get found.

Does AI Shopping Mean SEO Is Dead?

There’s been plenty of talk about AI killing SEO. Andrew and his team see it differently: “It’s not that SEO died. It really split into two.”

Traditional SEO still provides the foundation for how your site gets found. Now there’s another layer to think about: AX, or agent experience. It means optimizing your site so AI agents can easily access, understand, and use the information you provide.

For merchants, that means thinking beyond what customers see on the page. Agents need structured, machine-readable data they can reliably interpret, including schema markup and clean product feeds. Giving them direct access to that information is much more effective than relying on an agent to scrape a storefront and piece together the details itself.

How Shopify Is Connecting Catalogs to AI 

Shopify’s Global Catalog brings product data from millions of merchants into one universal catalog that can be syndicated directly to LLMs.

That gives AI agents a more reliable way to access product information. Instead of crawling individual storefronts and piecing together product details, they can pull current catalog data directly from Shopify, including inventory, promotions, shipping information, and product attributes.

As Andrew put it, “The catalog is the constant; the surfaces will keep changing.” As those surfaces evolve, the same product data needs to work across all of them.

Shopify is also opening access to the Global Catalog for brands that don’t currently use the platform. Its Agentic Plan allows non-Shopify merchants to upload product data to the Global Catalog and syndicate it to LLM platforms without migrating their existing commerce stack.

At Simplistic, we understand the importance of clean, accurate data. That’s why catalog data quality is an area we focus on at the start of every engagement. 

What Does an AI Agent See in Your Catalog? 

Getting your products into the Global Catalog gives AI agents access to your data. But catalog optimization for AI shopping goes beyond making that data available. Agents also need enough information to understand what you sell, who it’s for, and when to recommend it.

Andrew suggests a simple exercise: strip away the UI. Look past the design, navigation, product imagery, and other visual context on your storefront, then focus on the underlying product data. What would an agent have to work with?

Some common gaps to look for:

• Key product details are trapped in images. Information shown in product photography, graphics, or carousels should also appear as readable text or structured data that agents can access.

• Important attributes are missing. Depending on the product, that could include material, fit, use case, ingredients, or other details that help an agent determine whether it matches a shopper’s request.

• Titles and descriptions vary across channels. Keeping core product information consistent gives agents a clearer, more reliable picture of what they’re evaluating.

• Variants are listed as separate products. Sizes, colors, and other variants should sit under the same product so agents can understand the full range of options without treating each one as something entirely different.
  

Getting these fundamentals right helps an agent understand your products. The next challenge is giving it enough information to choose yours.

Getting Found Is One Thing. Getting Chosen Is Another.

Making your product available to an AI agent doesn’t guarantee it will recommend it. As Zac put it: “Connection gets you in the database. Selection gets you the actual sale.”

When an agent is comparing several products that meet a shopper’s criteria, the completeness of your data helps determine which one it recommends. Product attributes give agents the details they need to compare options. A well-structured FAQ or knowledge base can answer more specific questions about fit, materials, ingredients, use cases, or whatever else a shopper might want to know before buying.

Andrew gave the example of two brands with equally strong product data, but only one with a knowledge base that answers the shopper’s next question. That gives the agent more information to support its recommendation.

Brand and creative still matter, especially while conversational commerce remains the more common way people shop with AI. Zac echoed a line Andrew had shared: “Creative wins the sale, data wins the shortlist.” As AI takes on a bigger role in discovery and decision-making, your product data does more of the work to get your brand onto that shortlist.

How Shopify Powers Agentic Commerce

Catalog quality is only part of the picture. Agentic commerce also depends on the infrastructure that allows AI agents to browse, compare, and complete purchases reliably.

ACP (Agent Commerce Protocol), developed by OpenAI and Stripe, focuses on payments and transaction completion. UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol), developed by Shopify and Google, goes further. It handles the broader commerce logic behind the purchase, including inventory, discounts, shipping, and multi-store carts.

For Shopify merchants, there’s nothing extra to implement. As Andrew said, “By default, you’re covered no matter where.” Once checkout rules, discounts, and other commerce logic are configured in Shopify, they apply wherever the transaction takes place.

For brands evaluating Shopify, that’s another reason to consider the platform. As AI shopping evolves, Shopify is handling the protocol complexity, allowing merchants to focus on the quality of their catalog rather than the infrastructure behind it.

Turning All of This Into Action 

You don’t need to overhaul your entire catalog at once. Andrew’s advice is simple: “Take your 10 best sellers. Go through those with a fine-tooth comb.” Look at the data behind those products first and see where it could be stronger.

A few things to check:

• Titles, descriptions, and attributes. Is the information complete, accurate, and consistent across channels?

• Missing details. Think about the information someone might use to narrow down their options, like material, fit, ingredients, or use case. Is it all there?

• Your FAQ or knowledge base. Are you answering the questions someone might ask before buying? Make sure those answers exist as readable text, not just in images or other visual content.

• What’s left when you strip away the UI? Andrew’s closing recommendation was to look past the imagery and storefront experience and focus on the data itself. Without that visual context, would an agent understand what the product is, who it’s for, and when to recommend it?

Start there with your strongest products. What you find will give you a much clearer idea of where the rest of your catalog needs work.

What Comes Next 

Zac puts it like this: “If you’re an early mover in Google organic search, you’re in really good shape today.” The opportunity with agentic commerce is to get ahead in the same way. His advice for merchants right now: “Don’t overinvest in it, but make smart bets.”

As a Shopify Plus Platinum Partner, we’re in ongoing conversations with Shopify’s team, talking about what they’re building, what they’re seeing from merchants, and what it means for the brands we work with.

If you want to dig deeper into where Shopify sees agentic commerce heading, catch the full conversation between Zac and Andrew up top.

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If you want to see where your Shopify catalog stands today, where the gaps are, and where to focus first, let’s take a look. 

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