Note: Current in October 2026, from each company's own documentation, linked below. This part of commerce moves fast: programmes open to more countries and more shops, so check the source before you plan around it.
TL;DR. An AI shopping agent doesn't look at your shop the way a person does. It reads your product data and your policies, compares them with other shops, and more and more often it can buy on the shopper's behalf. To be found and chosen: let the search crawlers in, give every product complete and structured facts, keep price and stock current everywhere, and write policies a machine can quote. Agent checkout runs on open protocols where you stay the seller and can still say no.
What changes when an agent shops
A person scrolls, looks at photos and reads a little. An agent asks for a black linen shirt under a price, delivered by Friday, returnable, and then checks those facts across many shops in seconds. Whatever it can't find, it can't weigh. A page that hides delivery times in an image, or a returns policy written as a story, simply drops out of the comparison.
Two things follow. Your facts have to be readable without a browser, and they have to agree everywhere: on the page, in your product feed and in your policies.
Let the right crawlers in
Each AI company sends more than one kind of visitor, and they don't all do the same job.
| Visitor | What it's for | Follows robots.txt |
|---|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot | Showing sites in ChatGPT's search answers | Yes |
| OAI-AdsBot | Checking pages submitted as ads on ChatGPT; not used for training | It visits only pages submitted as ads |
| GPTBot | Content that may be used to train OpenAI's models | Yes |
| ChatGPT-User | A page a user asked ChatGPT to visit | Not always: OpenAI says robots.txt rules may not apply |
| ClaudeBot | Content that may be used to train Anthropic's models | Yes |
| Claude-SearchBot | Indexing pages for search answers in Claude | Yes |
| Claude-User | A page a Claude user asked for | Yes, Anthropic says its bots honour robots.txt |
| Google-Extended | A robots.txt token for Gemini training and grounding, not a separate crawler | Yes, and it doesn't affect Google Search |
| Google-Agent | Agents on Google's servers browsing and acting on a user's request | Generally not, since a user asked |
| Google-GeminiNotebook | A page a Gemini Notebook user added as a source | Generally not, since a user asked |
| PerplexityBot | Showing and linking sites in Perplexity's answers | Yes; not used for training |
| Perplexity-User | A page a user asked Perplexity to visit | Generally not |
Sources, read 20 October 2026: OpenAI, Google's common crawlers, Google's user-triggered fetchers, Anthropic, Perplexity.
The line that matters most: OpenAI says "Sites that are opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though can still appear as navigational links." Blocking every bot with "AI" in its name can take you out of the places shoppers now ask. Decide two things separately: whether you want to appear in AI search (let the search crawlers in), and whether your pages may be used to train models (GPTBot, ClaudeBot and Google-Extended govern that). Blocking Google-Extended doesn't change your place in Google Search; Google says so in the same documentation.
Complete, structured facts for every product
Agents compare on facts, so give each product all of them: the name, a clear photo, the price and currency, availability, the brand, the GTIN or barcode if it has one, delivery options and the returns policy. Google's merchant listing markup requires the first few and recommends the rest (Google Search Central). If you also send a product feed to Google Merchant Center, Google ranks the feed above the page's markup when their shipping or returns details disagree, so keep the two the same.
OpenAI takes product data through a feed too. Its documentation says onboarding product feeds "is currently available to approved partners", with a form at chatgpt.com/merchants, and recommends sending the whole feed once a day plus updates through the day by API (OpenAI commerce docs). If you sell through Shopify or Etsy, OpenAI says your catalog is already integrated, and shopping in ChatGPT is live for users in the US (ChatGPT for merchants).
The words still matter. Agents read titles and descriptions, so the advice in our guide to product pages that answer the buyer's questions applies twice over: measurements, materials, compatibility and who the product isn't for, in plain text.
Keep price and stock in step
When an agent quotes a price your checkout no longer honours, or sells the last one twice, the shopper blames you. Keep one source of truth for price and stock and let everything else read from it: the shop, the feeds and the marketplaces. Update the feeds when a price or a stock count changes, not at the end of the week.
Policies a machine can quote
Write delivery and returns as short, plain statements: dispatch time, carriers, regions, return window, who pays the return label, how fast the refund goes. Put them on one page each, not only inside the terms. Google suggests stating the return policy, and the shipping policy too, once for the whole business in your organisation markup, with product-level policies only for products that differ. Our guide to shipping and returns a small shop can keep helps with what to promise.
Checkout through an agent
Two open protocols lead here, and both keep you as the seller.
- The Agentic Commerce Protocol, developed by Stripe and OpenAI and open source under Apache 2.0, is what ChatGPT uses for shopping (Stripe's own documentation now names Meta as a third creator). Under it the business stays the merchant of record, keeps the customer relationship, decides which products are sold and how they're fulfilled, and can accept or decline a transaction for a given agent, a single order or its own reasons (agenticcommerce.dev). Since March 2026 ChatGPT uses it mainly for product discovery: OpenAI said its first Instant Checkout "did not offer the level of flexibility that we aspire to provide", and shoppers now finish the purchase on the merchant's own site or app by default, with no fee on those purchases (OpenAI, ChatGPT for merchants). Checkout inside ChatGPT stays open to approved partners (OpenAI).
- The Universal Commerce Protocol is Google's open standard for buying in AI Mode in Search and in the Gemini app. Merchants stay the merchant of record, can use their existing Merchant Center feeds, and embedded checkout is for approved merchants (Google). Checkout is open to select merchants through an early access program, for products sold in the US, and Google's Merchant Center guide, updated 19 October 2026, says the integration hub is "gradually rolling out in the United States, with Australia and Canada to follow early next year" (Google). Google's May 2026 post also named the U.K. for later (Google blog). Universal Cart, which checks out through UCP, opened in the US on 15 October 2026 (Google).
Whatever the protocol, decide your own rules before an agent arrives: which products it may buy, up to what amount, and which orders you want to approve first. FaStart's page for merchants shows how a FaStart shop sets those rules and where each part stands.
A checklist
| Check | Why |
|---|---|
| OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot allowed in robots.txt | Otherwise you're left out of their answers |
| A decision on GPTBot, ClaudeBot and Google-Extended | They govern training, not search |
| Product markup with price, currency, availability, brand, GTIN | Agents compare on these |
| Feeds that match the pages, updated when price or stock changes | A stale price is a failed order |
| Delivery and returns stated plainly, once, in their own pages | Agents quote them to shoppers |
| Your rules for agent orders written down | You stay the seller and can still say no |
FAQ
Should I block AI crawlers? Decide by job. Blocking OAI-SearchBot keeps you out of ChatGPT's search answers; blocking GPTBot, ClaudeBot or Google-Extended keeps your pages out of their training without changing your place in Google Search.
Do I need a different feed for every AI assistant? Not always. Google's AI surfaces can use your Merchant Center feed; ChatGPT takes its own feed format from approved partners and already reads Shopify and Etsy catalogs. Keep one source of product data and generate each feed from it.
Can an agent buy from my shop without my say? Under both protocols you remain the merchant of record, and under the Agentic Commerce Protocol you can decline a transaction by agent, by order or by your own logic.
Is agent checkout available everywhere? No. These programmes open country by country and to approved shops first; the sources above say where they stand.
