Shopify Brings Merchant Catalogs to ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot | PYMNTS.com

The feature lets merchants publish their catalogs to artificial intelligence platforms such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot so that shoppers can ask questions, compare items and complete purchases in a single thread, per the company’s Wednesday (Dec. 10) announcement. Shopify said the update responds to a clear shift away from search pages and toward conversational interfaces where consumers describe intent directly to AI systems.

Agentic Storefronts uses Shopify Catalog, a structured data system that formats attributes, pricing, availability and store policies in ways AI models can interpret. When a shopper asks about fit, materials or compatibility, the agent retrieves that data and returns specific suggestions. After a shopper selects an item, the agent routes the order into Shopify’s checkout while preserving attribution. According to Shopify’s announcement, centralizing these inputs reduces the risk of losing visibility inside AI ecosystems it does not control, a concern merchants have raised as AI platforms become gatekeepers for product discovery.

AI Agents Move to the Center of Discovery

The shift toward AI-directed discovery aligns with patterns PYMNTS has been tracking. Shoppers increasingly begin their product searches with an AI prompt instead of a traditional query. AI…