AI has become a serious source of leads and sales.
It’s still small compared to Google Search, sitting at around 0.2% of traffic, but it’s growing fast. Meanwhile, as AI search engines start answering questions directly, many brands are seeing organic clicks drop even while conversion rates climb. People may click less, but they’re buying more from the few brands that show up.
On the shopping front, things are moving quickly. Perplexity Shop launched late last year with a full end-to-end checkout experience. ChatGPT Shopping started out recommending products and has now added direct purchases, expanding new partnerships almost every week. And with protocols like Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), which make transactions between AI agents and merchants secure, consumers are becoming more comfortable letting AI do the buying for them.
In other words: AI search isn’t just answering questions anymore. It’s influencing what people buy, where they buy it, and who gets seen first. For ecommerce brands, that makes optimizing for generative engines just as essential as SEO once was.
So, what exactly is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?
If SEO is about ranking higher on Google, GEO is about being part of the answers AI search engines give. It’s making sure your brand and product data are structured, credible, and rich enough that ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini naturally mention you when someone asks, “What’s the best dining table under $500?”
Read: How GEO differs from SEO and how to adapt your SEO strategies for GEO
GEO vs AEO: What’s the difference?
You’ll probably see a few different acronyms floating around:
GEO or Generative Engine Optimization covers everything related to visibility in generative-AI engines, whether it’s text, image, or multimodal.
AEO or Answer Engine Optimization is a subset of GEO that focuses only on answer-based results.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what you call it. What matters is that people can find your products when they ask AI to recommend or compare options.
How we picked these GEO tools
Because AI responses vary by model, prompt, and even phrasing, it’s hard to say which visibility tracker is the “most accurate.” Instead of ranking AI visibility tools specifically, we’re breaking them down by the steps that actually move the needle for ecommerce visibility in AI search, and which tools fit best for each one.
These are the same steps we use in our own AI visibility playbook, summarized here:
- Track AI visibility across models
- Structure product data and optimize content
- Build brand presence with digital PR
- Collect and display reviews
- Reach out to influencers
- Engage on Reddit and other communities
- Measure and iterate
GEO tools to track AI visibility across models
Before you can improve visibility, you need to know if your brand even shows up in AI search results. Tracking helps you see when your brand or URLs appear in answers, which prompts trigger them, and how you’re positioned against competitors.
If you’re an ecommerce brand, tracking every possible prompt isn’t realistic. AI responses shift constantly, and the number of ways people ask questions is endless. So instead of going broad, track strategically.
Start with category-level prompts that mirror how shoppers actually search in AI. For example:
- “Best mid-century dining tables”
- “Affordable activewear for women”
- “Top industrial storage racks for small spaces”
These reveal whether AI engines understand your catalog and category positioning. Then add a few brand-specific queries, like “Is [your brand] good for [product category]?” or “[Your brand] vs [competitor],” to monitor brand perception and share of voice.
The goal isn’t to track everything, but to catch patterns:
- Are you being cited in high-intent queries?
- Which products or categories are most visible?
- Is your brand mentioned positively?
- When you make content or data updates, does visibility rise?
You’ll also want to decide which AI models are worth tracking. You can check GA4 to see which ones already bring in conversions, but for most ecommerce brands, you can start with key players like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews / AI Mode.
Tools to try:
- Profound: Enterprise-level tool designed to measure share of voice and monitor AI search visibility across multiple models. Its Prompt Volumes reveals what users are actually asking AI models (like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini), helping you spot prompt-based opportunities.
- AthenaHQ: Adds depth by tracking prompt variations and conversation context, then linking that data back to your Shopify catalog. Great if you want GEO insights directly connected to your ecommerce performance.
GEO tools to structure product data and optimize content
Just like how you work to get your products on Google Shopping and your pages indexed on Google, you’ll want to do the same for generative engines.
Optimizing for SEO already gives you a good foundation, but there are nuances that make a difference for GEO. For large language models (LLMs) to recognize your products and understand how they fit into user queries, your product data needs to be clean, structured, and detailed.
That means including as much information about your products as possible — and making sure it’s accurate and standardized. Consistent signals help LLMs interpret your catalog correctly and confidently recommend your brand.
When writing product descriptions, go beyond features and focus on use cases and target audiences. Instead of saying your mug is insulated, make it specific: “Keeps coffee warm through your entire 9-to-5 workday.”
Add a short FAQ section to answer common questions for each product, and structure your page with clear headers like Product Details, Specifications, and Reviews.
As multimodal search grows, visuals play a bigger role. Include high-resolution images, show your products from multiple angles, and feature real-world use cases to help AI models connect your product with lifestyle or functional intent.
Tool to try:
Hypotenuse AI helps ecommerce brands make their catalogs AI-ready by:
- Enriching and standardizing product data to fill in missing attributes, fix errors, and maintain consistency across your catalog.
- Generating product descriptions, specifications, and FAQs that align with shopper intent and current search trends.
- Enhancing and editing product images in bulk by upscaling low-quality visuals and replacing backgrounds for a clean, consistent look.
- Creating realistic lifestyle visuals that showcase your products in context and strengthen brand appeal.
GEO tools to build brand presence with digital PR
The more your brand is mentioned or quoted on credible, high-authority sites, and alongside the terms you want to be associated with, the more likely it is to appear in AI-generated answers for relevant queries.
It’s essentially link building, but with sharper intent around where you want to show up. These mentions build trust signals that AI models rely on when deciding which brands to reference.
For ecommerce, this means earning placements in relevant publications, industry roundups, or review sites that already talk about your products and categories. If you do a quick query on ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews, you’ll see which websites tend to be cited. Those are the ones worth targeting.
There are also communities and trusted niche publications within each industry, so focus on those to build topical authority.
What to focus on with digital PR
- Pitch stories that highlight your brand’s expertise or data insights (for example, “2025 home decor trends” or “how sustainable materials are shaping fashion”).
- Get featured in “best product” or “brand comparison” lists that AI assistants often cite.
- Maintain a mix of owned and earned media so your brand is referenced from multiple, trustworthy domains.
Tools to try:
- Peec AI: Tracks AI-driven visibility and shows which websites, product lists, or articles are cited in generative search. Helps you identify where your brand and your competitors are or aren’t being mentioned.
- Semrush link building tool: Lets you search for sources by keyword or run backlink gap research to find sites that mention your competitors but not you. Perfect for prioritizing PR outreach that boosts both SEO and GEO visibility.
GEO tools to reach and manage influencers
Influencers don’t just drive sales or awareness anymore. Their content is now part of what powers generative engines.
According to a recent Semrush study comparing AI Mode results, YouTube is one of the biggest citation sources in AI-generated answers, appearing frequently alongside platforms like Reddit and Facebook. This is especially so for platforms like Perplexity and AI Mode.
That means when creators post detailed product reviews, comparisons, or tutorials, those videos become data points that AI systems reference when recommending products. Partnering with the right influencers can help your brand show up in those AI-driven product lists and shopping recommendations.
What to focus on:
- Work with creators who produce searchable, descriptive content such as product reviews, tutorials, and “top product” videos on platforms like YouTube.
- Encourage creators to include brand names, product details, and use cases that AI engines can easily identify.
- Track which influencer content appears in search or generative results to understand what’s resonating.
Tools to try:
- Brandlight: Identifies and tracks influencers based on how they appear in AI-generated answers, helping you form partnerships with creators who already influence generative search visibility.
- CreatorIQ: An enterprise-grade platform for discovering, managing and scaling influencer programs, with deep analytics, CRM-capabilities, and global campaign workflows.
GEO tools to collect and display reviews
Reviews don’t just drive conversions on your product pages. They’re also one of the strongest signals that both search engines and generative engines use when deciding which brands or products to recommend.
If you try a shopping-related query on ChatGPT or Perplexity, you’ll notice that many product cards include star ratings, often aggregated from different third-party sources.
These ratings influence not only how generative engines recommend your products but also how confident shoppers feel when deciding to buy.
What to focus on:
- Collect reviews from first-party sources (your own website) and third-party marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, or Google Shopping.
- Display reviews using structured data (schema markup) so AI engines can read and associate them accurately with your products.
- Encourage detailed reviews that mention use cases, features, and comparisons — not just star ratings.
- Keep reviews fresh, verified, and keyword-rich. Recency and context matter more as AI systems prioritize trustworthy, current data.
Tools to try:
- Yotpo: Collects product reviews, photos, and Q&A on your store while automatically adding the structured data search engines and AI models need to understand and display them.
- Junip: Built for Shopify brands, Junip automates review requests and makes it easy to display verified, SEO-friendly reviews that AI engines can understand and associate with your products.
GEO tools to measure and iterate
Once you’ve optimized your product data, content, and visibility, the next step is to see what impact it’s actually having.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) remains the best way to measure results. While AI visibility tools show when or where your brand appears, GA4 tells you what happens after, whether that exposure drives traffic, engagement, or sales.
What to focus on:
- Track referral traffic and conversions from AI-driven platforms like Perplexity or ChatGPT when possible.
- Watch for growth in organic and branded search traffic, as that can indicate people are discovering your brand through AI search results and then searching for you directly on Google.
- Use event tracking to measure how users interact with your product content or reviews after discovering you through AI search.
- Compare performance over time to see if visibility improvements are translating into consistent customer actions.
Wrapping up
There are plenty of tools out there promising to boost AI visibility, but there’s no magic in any of them. The key is having a clear strategy first — knowing what you want to influence and why.
Maybe you need to clean up your product data, strengthen PR outreach, or build a stronger base of reviews. Once you understand where the biggest gap is, the right tools simply help you execute faster and track progress better.
Just like SEO, GEO isn’t about chasing algorithms. It’s about building long-term visibility through clarity, relevance, and trust. And if your SEO fundamentals are solid, you already stand a good chance of winning at GEO.
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