Product feeds for AI shopping: ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Copilot and Perplexity

Direct answer: As of 29 October 2026, product feeds are how most AI shopping channels learn your catalogue. Google uses Merchant Center data for shopping in AI Mode and Gemini, and its UCP-powered checkout (select merchants; US first, with Canada and Australia next and the UK later) is switched on per product through a feed attribute. Microsoft requires a Microsoft Merchant Center feed for Copilot Checkout, which is open to English-language merchants selling to US buyers. OpenAI takes ChatGPT product feeds from approved partners over SFTP; ChatGPT shopping is live for US users. Perplexity no longer shows a public merchant feed programme; its Instant Buy (US) reaches merchant catalogues through partners such as PayPal. Start with a complete, accurate Google Merchant Center feed, map the same master data to the other channels, and keep price and stock in step with your product pages.

This guide is for ecommerce directors, heads of digital and the people who run your feeds. It covers each channel's feed route and markets, the attributes that matter, a single mapping table, a checklist and what to fix first.

Last verified: 29 October 2026 against Google's Merchant Center Help, product data specification and UCP developer guides, OpenAI's Commerce documentation and merchants page, Microsoft Advertising's agentic commerce page, Perplexity's Help Center, PayPal's Store Sync page and Shopify's Help Center. These programmes change often, so check the current versions before you plan work.

Channel by channel (October 2026)

Two notes on this table:

• Feeds are not the only way in. OpenAI's merchants page answers "Do I need a product feed if ChatGPT already crawls my site?" with "No, but feeds give you greater control over how your products appear". Microsoft says it uses "both information found on the web and from a merchant's feed". Your product pages and structured data still matter, and they must agree with the feed.
• Discovery and checkout are separate. Microsoft puts it plainly: "Feeds primarily enable discovery (products showing up in AI responses), while UCP enables transactions". Getting into a feed does not switch on checkout anywhere. See ACP vs UCP vs AP2 vs MCP for the checkout side.

Google Merchant Center: the foundation

If your products are eligible for free listings, Google says they "may show in different places on Google, like Search, Images, Lens, YouTube, Gemini, the Shopping tab". Shopify's Help Center puts the AI side simply: "Product discovery for Google AI Mode and Gemini is powered by Google Merchant Center." For most retailers this is the feed to get right first.

The product data specification lists the minimum attributes. For a required attribute, Google says: "If you don't, your product won't be able to serve in ads and free listings."

Market rules sit in the same specification:

• Tax. US and Canadian prices exclude tax; in most other countries the price includes VAT or GST.
• Shipping. Shipping costs are required in many countries, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Germany and France.
• Unit pricing. "Optional (except when required by local laws or regulations)", which applies to many products in the EU and UK.
• Warranty. Required where local rules demand it; Google's example is Bill 29 in Quebec.

Google's AI performance insights in Merchant Center report how your products perform in AI Mode and AI Overviews. Google currently limits it to English-language queries for accounts in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and the US.

For Google's UCP checkout

Google's Merchant Center Help says UCP-powered checkout in AI Mode and Gemini applies to products with eligibility in the US, Canada and Australia and "is available for select merchants at this time". The developer guide to preparing your Merchant Center account sets the feed rules:

• Account. A Merchant Center account in good standing and approved for free listings, with a return policy (cost, window and link) and at least one customer support contact.
• Checkout opt-in. native_commerce(checkout_eligibility) set to TRUE. "If set to FALSE or missing, the product won't be eligible for checkout (defaults to FALSE)."
• Cart opt-out. Cart transfer works the other way round. Once your UCP profile declares cart support, products approved for free listings are eligible automatically unless you set native_commerce(cart_eligibility) to FALSE. To set both, use the composite native_commerce(checkout_eligibility:cart_eligibility), for example TRUE:FALSE. The group "is fully overwritten with each upload", so send both values every time.
• Consumer notices. A consumer_notice with type legal_disclaimer, safety_warning or prop_65 (California Proposition 65), up to 1,000 characters.
• IDs. If your Checkout API uses different product IDs from your feed, map them with merchant_item_id, which takes precedence over id in agent requests.
• Variants. variant_option alongside item_group_id and item_group_title. Incomplete variant data can stop the checkout button showing.
• Where to put it. "As a best practice, create a supplemental data source", because a formatting mistake in your primary feed can disrupt normal product ingestion.

Many categories are not eligible for checkout, including subscriptions, instalment plans, personalised goods, used, refurbished and final-sale items, pre-orders, items needing special shipping such as freight, gifts and age-restricted products. If you sell on Shopify, Shopify's Help Center says direct checkout in AI Mode and Gemini needs you to sell to customers in the US, Canada or Australia, but your store "can be based in any country", and products reach Google through the Google & YouTube channel or Merchant Center. Our guide to Google Universal Cart covers the cart side.

ChatGPT: OpenAI's product file

From OpenAI's Get started guide and product file specification, as read on 29 October 2026:

• Access. "Onboarding product feeds in ChatGPT is currently available to approved partners." You apply through a form. The merchants page says that if you have already applied, "you're on the waitlist", that Shopify and Etsy catalogues are already integrated, and that OpenAI is building a merchant platform for self-serve data integration "later this year".
• Delivery. "Upload your catalog over SFTP." Keep it current by overwriting the same file or set of shards with your latest snapshot: "We recommend uploading a full snapshot at least once a day." Promotions go through a separate Promotions API.
• Format. OpenAI prefers Parquet; gzipped JSON Lines, CSV and TSV are also supported. It recommends up to 500,000 items per shard and starting with a sample of around 100 items.
• Nine required fields. item_id, title, description, url, brand, seller_name, image_url, availability and price. For titles and descriptions, "aim for at most 150 and 5,000 characters".
• Availability must be explicit. in_stock, out_of_stock, pre_order, backorder or unknown. "Omitted, empty, or unrecognized values reject the row." unknown is allowed, but it "does not assert that the item is in stock".
• One row per variant. Each variant has its own item_id, a shared group_id, listing_has_variations and a variant_dict such as {"color":"Black","size":"10"}. "Never include price in an offer ID."
• Removals. If a product drops out of a snapshot, OpenAI keeps its last record for up to 14 days. Set is_eligible_search to false to remove it sooner.
• Markets. "The standard OpenAI-format upload currently targets the US." The shared format can represent the US, Canada and Mexico, and a currency, product URL or sizing system "does not select a destination market".
• Defaults. Search eligibility is on by default, checkout off. Checkout requires "a separately enabled integration". On the merchants page, OpenAI says purchases are completed on the merchant's own site or app.
• Prohibited products. The list includes adult content, age-restricted products such as alcohol and nicotine, weapons and prescription-only medicines.

The optional fields worth filling are gtin ("exactly 8, 12, 13, or 14 digits, including a valid check digit"), shipping price, the returns fields (accepts_returns, return_deadline_in_days, return_policy) and review aggregates (review_count, star_rating). OpenAI notes that an omitted shipping price "means unknown, not free shipping". Our guide to OpenAI's merchant feed terms covers what you agree to when you send a feed.

Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft Advertising's agentic commerce page says:

• "To onboard to Copilot Checkout, you must have an MMC account. A product feed is required to power product discovery and checkout."
• The first step is "to improve product visibility in Microsoft Merchant Center (MMC) with a UCP-ready feed". MMC "will support Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), enabling richer signals (returns/support policies)".
• Feed attributes for UCP include native checkout eligibility, product warnings where needed and a Merchant Item ID, which mirror Google's native_commerce, consumer_notice and merchant_item_id.
• "Only English‑language merchants who sell to US buyers are eligible at this time (supporting USD)." Copilot Checkout runs on Copilot.com and the Copilot mobile app, and Microsoft gives no timeline for other markets.
• Stripe and PayPal customers are not added automatically: the experience is "opt-in". Shopify merchants "have been automatically enrolled (with controls in Shopify admin)".
• "Today, Microsoft does not take a commission or affiliate fee", and merchants remain merchant of record.

Perplexity

Perplexity launched a Merchant Program for "large retailers" in November 2024, free for merchants. On 29 October 2026 its Merchant Program terms page returned "Page not found", and perplexity.ai/merchants now promotes a different product. We could not confirm that the programme still takes applications, so do not plan on a direct Perplexity feed.

What we could verify:

• Instant Buy. Perplexity's Help Center says Instant Buy lets US users buy "from a wide range of merchants directly on Perplexity", with the order and payment "sent directly to the merchant". It supports "merchants who are compatible with our agentic checkout experience".
• What it ranks on. "Our answer engine is more likely to recommend merchants who provide deeper product details such as availability, reviews, pricing, and specifications." Perplexity also says product listings are not sponsored.
• The catalogue route. PayPal announced on 25 November 2025 that its Store Sync service makes merchant catalogues "discoverable within Perplexity's results". PayPal's Store Sync page says "Google Shopping CSV or similar structured formats work well" and that PayPal "also accepts catalog feeds via API or SFTP".

So the practical route to Perplexity is a Google-style feed through PayPal Store Sync or your commerce platform, plus product pages that Perplexity's crawler can read. Check that PerplexityBot is not blocked; our guide to whether you are blocking AI shopping agents shows how.

One master catalogue, many feeds

Each channel names things differently:

Build every feed from one source of truth, your commerce platform or PIM, and transform it per channel. Separate spreadsheets for each channel are how prices, IDs and stock drift apart. Your on-page markup is part of the same system: in the 225 retailers scored for our Agent Commerce Index, 206 did not state shipping cost in structured data and 189 did not state returns terms, the very facts the feeds above now ask for.

Feed checklist

Completeness

• Every purchasable variant is its own row, with a stable ID that never changes
• A real GTIN where one is assigned, with a valid check digit, otherwise brand plus MPN
• Brand and seller name are real, not placeholders
• Titles at most 150 characters, factual, including the variant
• Explicit availability on every row
• Images at least 500 x 500 pixels

Accuracy

• Feed price equals the price on the landing page and in its JSON-LD, with the right tax treatment for the market
• Shipping cost and return terms are in the feed and match your policy pages
• Landing pages return 200 to AI crawlers and agents, with no interstitials

Freshness

• A full snapshot at least daily, with faster price and stock updates where the channel supports them (for Google, the Merchant API)
• Someone checks feed errors and disapprovals in each channel every week

Market

• Correct currency and destination country per feed
• Local legal attributes: unit pricing (EU, UK), warranty (Quebec), consumer notices (California)

What to fix first

1. Week 1: open Google Merchant Center diagnostics. Fix disapprovals and missing GTINs, brands and availability, and check images against the 500 x 500 pixel minimum.
2. Week 2: on a sample of products, check that feed price and stock match the landing page and its JSON-LD.
3. Weeks 3 to 4: add shipping, returns and customer support details in Merchant Center, and set up a Microsoft Merchant Center account and feed if you sell to the US.
4. If you sell to the US: apply for ChatGPT product feeds (unless Shopify or Etsy already covers you), and ask your payment provider about Copilot Checkout and PayPal Store Sync.
5. If you sell to the US, Canada or Australia: register interest in Google's UCP checkout, and prepare a supplemental data source with native_commerce and consumer_notice.
6. Everywhere: make sure your product pages carry the same price, shipping and returns facts in structured data.

Common mistakes

• Feed and page disagree. Different prices undermine trust and can lead to disapprovals. Agents may see both.
• Blank or "unknown" stock. OpenAI rejects blank availability rows, and unknown does not say you have stock.
• Reusing IDs after products are discontinued or variants change.
• Putting price in an ID. OpenAI explicitly forbids it in offer IDs.
• Assuming a feed alone gets you checkout. Checkout is a separate integration on every channel.
• Forgetting that Google's cart transfer is opt-out. Once your UCP profile declares cart support, eligible products are included unless you set cart_eligibility to FALSE.
• Pushing checkout attributes into the primary feed. Google recommends a supplemental data source.
• One feed for every country. Destination, currency, tax and legal attributes differ by market.

Sources

• Google Merchant Center Help, Product data specification, read 29 October 2026
• Google Merchant Center Help, About the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and UCP-powered checkout feature on Google, Free listings for products and AI performance insights, read 29 October 2026
• Google for Developers, Prepare your Merchant Center account, read 29 October 2026, and About the UCP integration hub in Merchant Center, updated 19 October 2026
• Google, How we're helping retailers thrive with new UCP features and AI tools, 20 May 2026
• OpenAI, Get started and Product file specification, read 29 October 2026
• OpenAI, ChatGPT merchants page, read 29 October 2026
• Microsoft Advertising, Agentic Commerce, read 29 October 2026
• Perplexity, Shop like a pro, 18 November 2024, and Help Center, What is Instant Buy?, read 29 October 2026
• PayPal, PayPal and Perplexity launch Instant Buy, 25 November 2025, and Store Sync, read 29 October 2026
• Shopify Help Center, Selling on Google AI Mode and Gemini, read 29 October 2026
• ConversionVector, Agent Commerce Index Q4 2026 (225 retailers scored) and Agent Conversion Score specification v0.6