Marketing edition
ChatGPT is now getting product recommendations mainly from feeds. OpenAI is also launching a cheaper model and a $500 subscription.
Make sure your product details are correct in feeds
The share of recommendations coming from feeds rose from 8 to 62 per cent. Nearly two in three measured online shops became less visible.
Profound measures how ChatGPT recommends products. A feed is a file of product details from an online shop. On 10 July, the share of recommendations from connected feeds rose from 8.26 to 61.54 per cent. Profound measured 687 online shops. Visibility fell by at least a third for 450 of them. The ten biggest players received a larger share together: it rose from 22.5 to 41.8 per cent. The number of online shops mentioned fell from 13,524 to 10,607. About 35 per cent of feed information is linked to Shopify. This is because Shopify Catalog is built into ChatGPT.
Something is changing at Google too. Productrise reports that product carousels on Google fell by about 90 to 100 per cent around 15 and 16 September. These are rows of products in search results. This happened in the Netherlands and the rest of the EEA, the European Economic Area.
Marketingfacts concludes that product feeds increasingly decide who gets found on Google and ChatGPT. A chatbot can answer a product question in two ways. It can read web pages and form its own picture. Or it can use details from a feed supplied by the online shop. According to these figures, the second method has been the most important since July. A feed has a set structure. This makes it easy for a chatbot to compare price, stock and title. A catchy description on your product page is probably less important. A complete and up-to-date entry in the feed matters more.
The 35 per cent figure for Shopify shows how much one platform can matter as a source. Google has also almost completely removed its product carousels in the EEA. That makes the effect greater. There are fewer places to show products. So more depends on the feed.
Keep the limits of these figures in mind. Profound and Productrise measure a sample of 687 online shops. That is a selection, not every online shop. The top ten's share is growing and the number of shops mentioned is falling. This fits the idea that big players with well-organised feeds have an advantage. But the figures do not prove that this is the cause. You also become dependent. Your visibility depends on the rules of one provider. And those rules can change. Do you not sell directly? Then your visibility may depend on the feeds of the shops that sell your products. Get your product feed this week. Check that the titles, prices and stock are correct.
Background for subscribersChatGPT is increasingly getting product recommendations from feeds. Product feeds are becoming more important on Google too. Its product carousels have almost disappeared in the EEA. So check that the titles, prices and stock in your feed are up to date. If you are thinking about AI adverts, remember that there are no comparison figures yet. Start with a small test and decide in advance what result you want to see. Agree which tasks AI agents can do on their own. When it comes to safety, do not rely only on providers' voluntary promises. Ask for agreements in writing too.
Marketers want to use AI assistants, but customers do not trust them yet
Kantar surveyed more than 800 senior marketers and more than 23,000 consumers. Of the marketers, 75 per cent want to invest more in visibility in AI assistants in 2027. But in the Netherlands, only 22 per cent of consumers use such an assistant to research brands. Just 14 per cent trust the recommendations. And 59 per cent of people in the Netherlands are bothered by AI content that is not labelled as AI. Marketers also want to invest more in micro-creators (66 per cent) and nano-creators (61 per cent). These are social media creators with a small or very small audience. Only half still trust the balance between brand building and performance. Brand building means working on your name over the long term. Performance means focusing on direct results, such as sales. You cannot buy visibility in an AI assistant in the same way as an advert. The assistant creates its own answer. Your brand may or may not be mentioned. And only 14 per cent trust these recommendations. Being mentioned does not mean the customer will choose you. Plans for micro- and nano-creators fit the same picture. When trust is scarce, small creators with a recognisable personality may be worth more. Note: this is a survey about plans. It is not about money that has already been spent. Marketers wanting to invest more does not tell us what they will get in return. If you increase your visibility in AI while using AI content without a label, you may annoy those 59 per cent. This week, decide which AI content you will clearly label as AI. Do this before shifting your budget towards AI visibility.
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