ChatGPT Shopping Just Went From 8% to 87% in Five Months.

Key statistics at a glance

• ChatGPT's in-chat shopping widget appeared in 87% of product-related responses in February 2026, up from 8.3% in October 2025 (Evertune, March 2026).

• The increase happened over five months, with steady month-over-month growth.

• 8 of 11 product categories tracked now trigger a shopping experience in over 90% of responses.

• Health and fitness is the top category at 99%.

• The two categories below 50% are luxury and lifestyle (48%) and groceries and everyday needs (40%), both up roughly 10x from October 2025.

• OpenAI launched in-chat shopping in September 2025 and Shopping Research in November 2025.

• Google announced shopping partnerships with Walmart, Shopify, and Wayfair in January 2026 for Gemini.

TL;DR

A March 2026 study by Evertune tracking 200+ identical shopping prompts on ChatGPT found that ChatGPT's in-chat shopping widget appeared in 8.3% of responses in October 2025 and 87% of responses in February 2026, a roughly 10x increase in five months. Transactional moments are now happening inside the AI response itself, which makes Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) commercially urgent for any brand selling consumer products.

Definitions

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of improving a brand's visibility, accuracy, and sentiment in AI-generated responses from large language models such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, and Perplexity.

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of ensuring a brand appears in direct-answer and recommendation contexts inside AI assistants, particularly in moments where the user is making a purchase decision.

ChatGPT in-chat shopping widget is a feature OpenAI launched in September 2025 that displays product images, prices, and checkout options directly inside a ChatGPT response, allowing the user to evaluate and purchase without leaving the conversation.

What the data shows

According to Evertune's March 2026 research, the company sent 200+ product and price-focused prompts to ChatGPT in October 2025 and repeated the identical question set in February 2026. Each question was run multiple times for statistical validity.

ChatGPT in-chat shopping widget appearance rate:

Evertune observed steady month-over-month gains in December 2025 and January 2026, indicating the shift was gradual rather than sudden.

For context, the ChatGPT in-chat shopping widget displays product images, prices, and checkout options directly inside a ChatGPT response. The user never leaves the chat. The product discovery, evaluation, and purchase decision all happen inside the AI conversation.

Results by product category

Across 11 product categories tracked by Evertune, 8 categories showed shopping widget trigger rates above 90% in February 2026. Health and fitness led all categories at 99%.

ChatGPT shopping widget trigger rate by product category (February 2026 vs October 2025):

Even the lowest-performing categories grew roughly 10x in five months. The direction of travel is consistent across every category Evertune tested.

The prompts least likely to trigger a shopping experience in February 2026 shared a pattern: fragmented supply, subscription models, or specialty attributes that ChatGPT could not match to a clean checkout flow. Examples include:

• "Best grocery delivery services for fresh produce"

• "Where to buy second-hand designer handbags"

• "Where to buy cruelty-free makeup online?"

• "Best affordable champagne alternatives"

Secondhand goods, subscription services, and specialty products (gluten-free, fair-trade, cruelty-free) consistently generated the lowest shopping widget rates in both October 2025 and February 2026. That gap is unlikely to last. As OpenAI's merchant network expands into these niches, the widget will follow.

Why this happened so fast

OpenAI launched in-chat shopping in September 2025. In November 2025, the company released Shopping Research, a feature OpenAI described as a virtual personal shopper that surfaces recommendations based on user preferences and budget. The February 2026 numbers reflect how thoroughly that feature now shapes default ChatGPT behavior.

The trend is not isolated to OpenAI. In January 2026, Google announced partnerships with Walmart, Shopify, and Wayfair to bring shopping recommendations and instant checkout directly inside Gemini. Anthropic, Perplexity, and others are building toward similar capabilities.

The pattern is clear. Every major AI assistant is moving toward direct commerce inside the conversation. The "search, then shop" funnel is collapsing into a single step.

What this changes for brand visibility

For years, the metric that mattered was whether your product page ranked on Google. The metric now is whether ChatGPT recommends your product when someone asks for one, and whether the model surfaces accurate information about your price, availability, and positioning.

When AI models are deciding what to recommend in transactional moments, what they say about your brand becomes a direct commercial variable. It is no longer a soft brand awareness signal. It is the moment of conversion.

This is the territory of GEO and AEO. To recap the definitions:

• Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of improving a brand's visibility, accuracy, and sentiment in AI-generated responses.

• Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) focuses specifically on ensuring a brand appears in direct-answer and recommendation contexts.

Both used to feel optional. With 87% of shopping prompts triggering an in-chat purchase experience, they are now table stakes.

What the best GEO and AEO platforms measure

If you want to know where you stand in this new layer of the funnel, these are the questions a serious tracking setup should answer:

1. How often is your brand recommended in shopping-related AI responses?

2. Which sources do AI models cite when they recommend products in your category?

3. How does your AI visibility compare to competitors across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity?

4. Are AI models surfacing accurate product and pricing information about your brand, or are they hallucinating?

5. How is your share of voice trending over time, and which categories or markets are gaining or losing ground?

You cannot fix what you cannot see. And what you cannot see in this environment is most of what is happening to your brand inside AI conversations.

How KIME helps

This is exactly the problem KIME is built to solve.

KIME tracks how AI models talk about your brand across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and AI Mode. You can submit the prompts that matter to your business, segment them by category and market, and watch your visibility, placement, sentiment, and share of voice change over time. When ChatGPT recommends a competitor instead of you, KIME tells you which sources the model pulled from and what it said. When your AI visibility drops, KIME surfaces the likely cause and points you toward the fix.

The Action Centre goes a step further. Instead of just reporting the data, it gives you specific, prioritized recommendations for how to improve your standing in AI responses, from content gaps to citation opportunities to technical issues like ChatGPT being blocked from crawling your site (a problem KIME has caught for real customers).

Brands like Gymshark, Saxo, Superb, and THEMAGIC5 already use KIME to make sure they show up when it counts. With 87% of ChatGPT shopping prompts now ending in an in-chat purchase experience, "when it counts" is most of the time.

Frequently asked questions

How often does ChatGPT show a shopping widget in product-related responses?

As of February 2026, ChatGPT's in-chat shopping widget appeared in 87% of product and price-focused prompts, according to Evertune research that tracked 200+ identical prompts. This is up from just 8.3% in October 2025, a roughly 10x increase in five months.

Which product categories trigger ChatGPT shopping experiences most often?

In 8 of 11 product categories tracked, more than 90% of ChatGPT responses triggered a shopping experience in February 2026. Health and fitness led all categories at 99%. Only luxury and lifestyle products (48%) and groceries and everyday needs (40%) remained below 50%, though both still grew roughly 10x from their October 2025 baselines.

What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of improving a brand's visibility, accuracy, and sentiment in AI-generated responses from models like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity. It focuses on how your brand is recommended, described, and cited when users ask AI assistants questions in your category.

What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) focuses specifically on ensuring a brand appears in direct-answer and recommendation contexts inside AI assistants. Where GEO covers the full picture of how AI talks about your brand, AEO zeroes in on the moments where the AI is making a specific recommendation a user is likely to act on.

Why did ChatGPT shopping grow so quickly between October 2025 and February 2026?

OpenAI launched in-chat shopping in September 2025, then released Shopping Research in November 2025, a feature OpenAI described as a virtual personal shopper that surfaces recommendations based on user preferences and budget. The February 2026 data reflects how thoroughly that feature now shapes default ChatGPT behavior. Google also announced partnerships with Walmart, Shopify, and Wayfair in January 2026 to bring similar functionality to Gemini.

What should GEO and AEO platforms measure in the era of AI shopping?

The most important measurements are: how often a brand is recommended in shopping-related AI responses, which sources AI models cite when recommending products, how a brand's AI visibility compares to competitors across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity, whether AI models surface accurate product and pricing information, and how share of voice is trending over time across categories and markets.

How can brands track their visibility in ChatGPT and other AI assistants?

Brands can use a GEO and AEO platform like KIME to track how AI models talk about their brand across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and AI Mode. KIME lets you submit the prompts that matter to your business, segment by category and market, and monitor visibility, placement, sentiment, and share of voice over time. It also tracks which sources AI models cite when recommending products in your category.

The takeaway

In five months, ChatGPT went from a place where 1 in 12 shopping prompts produced a purchase experience to a place where 9 in 10 do. The transactional layer of the internet is moving inside AI conversations, and the brands that figure out their GEO and AEO strategy now will own the recommendations that matter in 2026 and beyond.

If you have not measured your AI visibility yet, start. Try KIME for free or book a demo to see exactly how your brand is showing up in ChatGPT today.

Sources and methodology

Primary context: OpenAI in-chat shopping launch (September 2025), OpenAI Shopping Research launch (November 2025), Google Gemini partnerships with Walmart, Shopify, and Wayfair (January 2026).

Analysis and commentary: KIME Editorial Team, May 2026.