Make your products readable to shopping agents
Platforms are adding ways for AI agents to compare and buy products. Our view on the plain product facts a small brand should get right first.
Start with plain product facts: an agent can only recommend what it can read. Platforms and commerce tools are building ways for AI agents to find, compare and, in some cases, buy for a shopper. Coverage calls it agentic commerce. Mainstream use is still early and the adoption forecasts we have seen are secondhand, so we would not plan around them.
The question for a small brand is smaller than the headline: could an agent tell what your product is?
What an agent needs from you
An agent compares products on facts it can read. If those facts are missing, vague or different from page to page, you are easy to skip.
- What it is and who it is for, in plain words, near the top of the page.
- The details people filter on: size, materials, compatibility, shipping and returns terms.
- The same facts everywhere. A listing, your site and a review should not disagree.
- Honest limits. Say what the product does not do. Clear limits help shoppers, and likely agents, rule you in or out correctly.
What we would not do
We would not rebuild a store around a protocol that may change. We would not stop listening to customers, because their reviews are a large part of what any agent reads. And we would not treat this as a reason to skip the basic question of whether people want the product at all.
Our guide on what B2C founders should do about AI shopping agents goes through the steps in more detail, and choosing a first market covers the earlier question of who the product is for.
We may be early or wrong on the details. Tell us what you see in your category.
