Getting your store ready for AI shopping

AI assistants are starting to do more of the shopping legwork: shortlisting products, comparing prices and delivery dates, and in some markets paying on the shopper’s behalf. This is agentic commerce, and for UK online stores the useful question in October 2026 is not “can we sell inside ChatGPT tomorrow?” but “is our catalogue clear enough for software to choose us?”

This guide is for UK ecommerce owners and marketing managers on any platform. It sets out what is live as of 25 October 2026, checked against OpenAI, Google, Shopify, Visa and Mastercard’s own announcements, then works through readiness: product data, feeds, structured data, policies, checkout, brand signals, measurement and risk. It ends with a scorecard and a 30/60/90-day plan, and goes deeper than our overview of ecommerce marketing automation tools for 2026.

Quick Answer: How do you get your store ready for AI shopping?

Make your products easy for AI assistants to read, trust and buy. Fix product data first (specific titles, full attributes, GTINs, accurate stock and prices), keep Google Merchant Center and any Shopify Catalog data in sync with your site, add Product and Offer schema, publish plain returns and delivery policies, and remove checkout friction. In-chat checkout is still mostly US-only, so for UK stores data comes first.

Key Takeaways

• In March 2026 OpenAI stepped back from in-chat Instant Checkout to focus ChatGPT on product discovery.
• Google’s checkout in AI Mode and Gemini is live for eligible US merchants; Google says the UK comes after Canada and Australia.
• UK banks already take part in Visa’s live agent payments in Europe, so payments are moving faster than shopping interfaces here.
• For UK stores, product data, feeds, schema and clear policies pay off now, because the same data feeds Google Shopping, SEO and AI assistants.
• Margin, returns, brand control and fraud all need controls before you switch AI channels on.

What is agentic commerce, and what is live in October 2026?

It means AI assistants acting for a shopper: researching, comparing and, with permission, buying. Discovery (the assistant recommends your product) is already widespread. Checkout inside the assistant is narrower and mostly limited to the US. For the wider picture, see our guide to autonomous AI marketing agents.

ChatGPT and the Agentic Commerce Protocol

OpenAI launched Instant Checkout in September 2025 on the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), an open standard built with Stripe, starting with US users buying from US Etsy sellers. On 24 March 2026, in Powering Product Discovery in ChatGPT, OpenAI said that first version “did not offer the level of flexibility that we aspire to provide”. Merchants can now use their own checkout while OpenAI concentrates on discovery, and ACP was extended so merchants can share product feeds and promotions. Retailers wanting more can build a ChatGPT app, as Walmart has.

OpenAI’s merchant page, checked in October 2026, says ChatGPT shopping is live for US users, sends shoppers to the merchant’s site by default and charges no fees on those purchases. Shopify and Etsy catalogues are already integrated; other merchants apply for feed access. The help centre still mentions Instant Checkout for some eligible products, so it has been scaled back rather than switched off.

Google AI Mode, Gemini and the Universal Commerce Protocol

AI Mode has been available in UK Google Search since July 2025. In January 2026 Google launched the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), co-developed with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart, to power checkout with Google Pay on eligible US listings in AI Mode and the Gemini app. It works alongside the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) that Google introduced in 2025. In its May 2026 retail update, Google said UCP checkout would reach Canada and Australia in the coming months and the UK later. On 15 October 2026 it launched Universal Cart in the US, one cart across retailers in Search and Gemini, with the retailer remaining seller of record. Merchant Center help on UCP checkout still covers only the US, Canada and Australia, for select merchants whose listings carry the native_commerce attribute.

Shopify agentic storefronts

On 24 March 2026 Shopify said millions of merchants could sell to ChatGPT users through agentic storefronts, which also connect stores to Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Mode and Gemini from the Shopify admin. Its help centre says the channel is on by default for eligible stores, and eligibility depends on where you sell: ChatGPT needs you to sell to US customers (your store can be based anywhere), Google direct checkout needs US, Canadian or Australian customers, and Copilot checkout shows only to US buyers. Every channel needs your terms, privacy and returns policies completed.

Visa, Mastercard and Perplexity

Payments are closer to the UK. On 2 July 2026 Visa announced live agentic transactions across Europe, with agents buying from merchants such as Frasers and lastminute.com within cardholder-set limits. Issuers include Barclays, HSBC UK, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide, NatWest and Revolut; payments used Visa Payment Passkeys, and merchants recognise verified agents through Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol.

Mastercard Agent Pay lets agents pay within limits the customer sets. Santander and Mastercard reported a live agent payment in March 2026, in a pilot rather than a commercial rollout, and a July 2026 post on Mastercard’s UK newsroom said its Proto sandbox would open in the UK in August for retailers to test whether agents can find their products. Perplexity made shopping with PayPal checkout free to all US users in November 2025; we found no UK launch.

What does this mean for UK online stores right now?

UK shoppers can already research products in AI Mode and ChatGPT and click through, so what assistants read about you matters today. In-chat checkout for UK shoppers isn’t open on any platform we checked, so nobody needs to rebuild their checkout this quarter. A Bristol homeware brand on Shopify that ships to the US may already appear in ChatGPT through Shopify Catalog; a UK-only skincare brand won’t yet, but the same product data powers its Google Shopping listings. Either way the work is the same, and it overlaps heavily with ecommerce SEO.

How do you get your product data ready for AI shopping agents?

AI shopping agents match a request with several constraints (“waterproof trail shoes, size 10, under £120, delivered by Friday”) against product attributes. If an attribute is missing, the agent can’t confirm the match, and a competitor with complete data gets the recommendation. Start with your top 100 sellers.

Titles and attributes

Titles should say brand, product type, the attribute people filter on, then the variant. “Fellside Men’s Waterproof Trail Running Shoe, Black, UK 10” gives an agent far more than “Storm Runner”. Fill every relevant attribute (colour, material, size, dimensions, compatibility) with consistent units, and give each variant its own price, stock status, image and URL.

Identifiers

Add GTINs wherever the manufacturer assigned them, and brand plus MPN where it didn’t. Never invent them: OpenAI’s product feed specification says not to make up an MPN to replace a missing GTIN.

Descriptions, sizing, stock and price

Keep descriptions factual: what it is, what it’s made of, who it suits, how it fits. Put size guides and fit notes in text, not only images. Shopify asks merchants to place legal disclosures within the first 6,000 characters of a description for its AI channels. OpenAI’s help centre warns that price and shipping changes can take time to reach ChatGPT, so update feeds often and mark variants out of stock the moment they sell through. To audit what you have, NSP’s Product Scraper pulls products, variants and images from a shop link, which makes missing sizes or empty attributes easier to spot.

Which product feeds should you prioritise?

Google Merchant Center

This is the base layer for UK retailers: it powers Shopping ads and free listings, and Shopify says it is how products reach Google AI Mode and Gemini. In January 2026 Google announced dozens of new conversational attributes (answers to common product questions, compatible accessories, substitutes), and in May 2026 said retailers globally can use them. Clear disapprovals first, then set up your return policy in Merchant Center.

Shopify Catalog

Catalog sends title, description, options, images, price and availability to AI channels and keeps them updated. If your best data sits in metafields or tags, use Shopify Catalog Mapping to point Catalog at those fields, and decide whether to share compare-at prices.

The ChatGPT product feed

OpenAI’s feed specification has nine required fields (item ID, title, description, URL, brand, seller name, image URL, availability and price) plus optional variant, GTIN, shipping, returns and review fields. Its standard upload targets the US, so a direct feed only makes sense if you sell meaningfully there, but structuring your data to that standard costs little.

Which structured data and review signals help AI agents trust you?

Every product page should carry Product markup with a nested Offer: name, image, description, brand, GTIN or MPN, price, priceCurrency (GBP), availability and URL. Add AggregateRating and Review only for genuine reviews shown on the page. Google’s merchant listing documentation supports return and shipping policy markup, ideally set once at Organization level. Schema, feed and visible page must say the same thing.

OpenAI’s help centre says ChatGPT may show review summaries generated from reviews on public websites, and ranks merchants on factors including availability, price, quality and whether the merchant is the maker or main seller. So independent reviews count. Ask for reviews after delivery, reply to critical ones, and never buy or fake them: the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 bans fake reviews in the UK. Consistent brand facts across the web help too, as our posts on GEO vs SEO and the generative engine optimization checklist explain.

Which store policies do AI agents read before they buy?

An agent asked for “something that arrives by Friday and can be returned” must confirm both. Shopify’s AI channels require completed terms, privacy and returns policies; OpenAI’s feed has fields for return acceptance, return window and policy URL. Shopify stores also serve an /agents.md file automatically, summarising the store and its policies for AI agents.

• Returns: state the window, who pays return postage and what is excluded, in line with the 14-day cancellation right most UK online purchases carry.
• Delivery: list costs, times and cut-offs by service and region, as text on one page.
• Pricing transparency: show the total price, including mandatory charges, up front, as UK drip pricing rules require, and use “was” prices only when genuine. Our guide to Black Friday pricing claims covers the rules.
• Consistency: your footer, Merchant Center, schema and feed should give the same numbers.

Is your checkout ready for agentic checkout?

Most AI-referred UK shoppers still finish on your own checkout, sometimes inside an in-app browser, which is how ChatGPT opens Shopify checkouts. Offer guest checkout and wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Shop Pay), keep pop-ups off the form and show delivery costs before payment. When agentic checkout reaches the UK, three things decide how fast you can join:

• Payment provider: Google listed Adyen, Stripe, Visa and Mastercard among UCP’s supporters in January 2026. Ask yours what it supports and when.
• Bot settings: tools that block all automated traffic may block legitimate agents. Ask your provider about Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol, which Cloudflare and Akamai support. On Shopify, blocking AI crawlers in robots.txt doesn’t stop what Shopify Catalog sends.
• Authentication: Strong Customer Authentication still applies; Visa’s European agent payments used Payment Passkeys for it.

How do you measure AI shopping traffic and sales?

• Platform attribution: Shopify shows AI channel orders with channel or referrer attribution.
• GA4: group referrals from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com. In-app browsers can strip the referrer, so check “direct” too, as our GA4 check for hidden ChatGPT traffic explains.
• Merchant Center: Google’s AI performance insights were announced in May 2026 for Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and the US, not yet the UK.
• Prompt checks: monthly, run 20 buying prompts (“best waterproof walking boots under £150 UK”) across ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode and Perplexity, and log products, prices and errors.

Track conversion rate, order value and return rate for AI-referred visits separately. If those visitors land on weak pages, our guide to AI agents for conversion rate optimization covers testing them.

What are the risks of agentic commerce for UK retailers?

• Margin: agents compare prices side by side, and ChatGPT may tag the cheapest seller “Best price”. Compete on delivery, returns and bundles too, and set price floors first.
• Returns: agents choosing sizes from thin data get it wrong more often, so improve fit data and track returns by channel.
• Brand control: OpenAI says ChatGPT may simplify your titles and add labels such as “Budget-friendly”. You control the inputs, not the output.
• Fraud and disputes: keep order evidence, and tune fraud rules so they neither block verified agents nor admit bad bots.
• Restricted products: check each platform’s commerce policy for age-restricted categories.

Opting out rarely works: Shopify notes AI channels can still find products through web crawling, and fully hiding a product also hides it from search engines.

How ready is your store? A readiness scorecard

Score each area 0 (not started), 1 (partly done) or 2 (done) for your top 100 products.

A score of 13 to 16 means you’re ready to test new channels as they open; 8 to 12 means gaps will cost you recommendations; under 8, start with product data and feeds.

What does a 30/60/90-day readiness plan look like?

Days 1 to 30: audit and fix the basics

1. Score your store and pick your top 100 products by revenue.
2. Rewrite their titles and fill in missing attributes, identifiers and size data.
3. Clear Merchant Center errors and, on Shopify, check Catalog eligibility.
4. Rewrite returns and delivery policies in plain English.

Days 31 to 60: feeds, schema and reviews

1. Move to one source of truth for product data and automate feed updates.
2. Add or fix Product, Offer, review and policy markup, then validate it.
3. Start post-delivery review requests.
4. Build the GA4 AI channel group and begin monthly prompt checks.

Days 61 to 90: checkout, risk and channels

1. Test checkout in an in-app browser and remove blockers.
2. Ask payment and fraud providers about agent payments.
3. Set margin floors and promotion rules for AI channels.
4. Re-score, extend to the full catalogue and book a quarterly review.

How NSP Global Services Can Help

NSP Global Services helps UK stores prepare for AI shopping without betting on one platform. Our agentic commerce readiness service reviews product data, feeds, policies and checkout against what AI shopping agents need, starting with a free readiness scorecard. For Shopify merchants, our AI Shopify services cover product data, metafields, structured data and feeds, alongside Shopify SEO.

For a second opinion on where your store stands, talk to our team.

Conclusion

AI shopping in October 2026 is uneven. OpenAI has stepped back from in-chat checkout, Google’s checkout is live in the US with the UK promised later, Shopify connects merchants to AI channels where they sell to eligible markets, and UK banks already approve agent payments through Visa. For a UK store, the checkout layer can wait a little. The data layer can’t.

Stores with specific titles, complete attributes, accurate feeds, honest policies and a smooth checkout will be easiest for an assistant to recommend, and the same work improves Google Shopping, SEO and conversion today. Score your store, fix your top 100 products first, and review each quarter as agentic commerce develops.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can UK shoppers buy products directly inside ChatGPT?

Not as a rule, as of October 2026. OpenAI’s merchant page says shopping in ChatGPT is currently live for US users, and in March 2026 OpenAI moved away from in-chat Instant Checkout so that most purchases finish on the merchant’s own site or app. UK shoppers can still research products in ChatGPT and click through to retailers, so accurate product pages, schema and prices matter for UK stores now.

Is Google’s agentic checkout available in the UK?

Not yet. Google’s checkout in AI Mode and the Gemini app, powered by the Universal Commerce Protocol, launched for eligible US retailers, and Google’s Merchant Center help currently covers products eligible in the US, Canada and Australia. In May 2026 Google said checkout would reach Canada and Australia in the coming months and the UK later, without giving a date. AI Mode itself has been available in the UK since July 2025.

What is the difference between ACP and UCP?

Both are open standards for AI shopping. The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) was developed by OpenAI with Stripe and now mainly carries merchants’ product feeds and promotions into ChatGPT. The Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) was launched by Google in January 2026, co-developed with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart, and powers checkout on Google’s AI surfaces. Shopify connects eligible merchants to both through agentic storefronts, so most Shopify stores don’t integrate either directly.

Do I need to be on Shopify to sell through AI assistants?

No. Google AI Mode and Gemini draw on Google Merchant Center, which any ecommerce platform can feed, and OpenAI accepts direct product feeds from merchants who apply. Shopify’s agentic storefronts make the connection easier for its own merchants, and its Agentic plan lets brands on other platforms add products to Shopify Catalog. Whatever your platform, the groundwork is the same: complete product data, accurate feeds, structured data and clear policies.

Should I block AI crawlers in robots.txt?

Think carefully before you do. Blocking AI crawlers can reduce how often assistants read and cite your pages, and Shopify notes that robots.txt rules are advisory, so not every crawler follows them. On Shopify, blocking crawlers also doesn’t stop Shopify Catalog sending product data to the AI channels you have active. Most retailers are better served by keeping public product pages crawlable and protecting private areas such as customer accounts.

Who handles returns and customer service when an AI agent buys from my store?

You do. In the main programmes checked in October 2026, including Google’s UCP checkout, Shopify’s agentic storefronts, Perplexity’s PayPal checkout and OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol, the retailer remains the merchant or seller of record. Your returns policy, UK consumer rights such as the 14-day cancellation period for most online purchases, and your support team all apply as normal, so make your policies clear before an agent quotes them.

How much does it cost to sell through AI shopping channels?

Being discovered is generally free. Shopify says there are no fees for selling in ChatGPT or through Copilot’s direct checkout beyond standard payment processing, and OpenAI’s merchant page says there are no fees on purchases made on your own site or app. Fees for in-chat checkout have varied by programme, so read each platform’s terms. The real cost is the work on product data, feeds and checkout, plus any paid placements.

Will AI shopping agents replace my website?

Not in the near term. Even the most advanced programmes in October 2026 send many shoppers back to the retailer’s own checkout, and agents rely on your product pages, policies and reviews to decide what to recommend. Your website becomes the source of truth that assistants read, so its accuracy matters more than before. Treat AI channels as an extra route to customers alongside search, ads, email and marketplaces.