GEO SEO for eCommerce: The Next Evolution of Search Optimization
31.10.2025
AI is reshaping how people buy online. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and GXO (Generative Experience Optimization) help eCommerce brands stay visible and trusted as AI agents start comparing, recommending, and even purchasing products for customers.
Agentic Commerce & AI-Driven Shopping: Why Visibility Rules Are Changing
Have you already used ChatGPT for shopping requests? It's very likely. yes. Recent studies show that nearly 60% of consumers have used AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, or Copilot to help them shop online — and among younger shoppers, that number rises to 77% (University of Virginia Darden School of Business, IESE Business School).
Adobe reports that AI traffic to retail websites has grown to 4,700% YoY in July 2025. It looks impressive, right? But at the same time, shopping-related prompts still represent only about 2.2% of all ChatGPT searches, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research (Forbes, Sept 2025).
That’s a small share but a powerful signal. Even at low volume, the behaviour is spreading fast, and every new ChatGPT or Gemini integration moves us closer to mainstream AI-driven shopping.
There’s no doubt: online shopping is entering a new phase. And not only because istead of typing short keywords into Google, people now ask AI assistants to find, compare, and even buy products for them. But because they start searching in Google in the same way, asking longer, more conversational questions.
“Find a sustainable skincare brand that ships to the Netherlands.” “What’s the best Bluetooth speaker under €150 with free returns?”
AI-powered shopping experiences don’t just list results, they curate, summarize, and recommend. For merchants, that means traditional SEO visibility is no longer enough. And now people expect “AI-like” clarity everywhere.
Your store’s product data, structure, and clarity now determine whether AI systems can understand and trust your catalog enough to include it in their recommendations.
This is where GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and GXO (Generative Experience Optimization) come in — the next evolution of SEO for the AI and Agentic Commerce era. They focus not only on ranking in search engines but on being discoverable, interpretable, and preferred by AI models and shopping agents that guide customers through their buying journey.
In this article, we’ll explore:
- How AI assistants are changing user behaviour and expectations.
- Why SEO is evolving into GEO and GXO.
- What Magento and Shopify merchants can do today to stay visible in AI-driven search results.
From SEO to GEO and GXO: Understanding the Shift
Search Engine Optimization has been the foundation of online visibility for two decades. But the way people find information and the systems that deliver it are changing, and changing very fast. While traditional SEO focused on ranking well in search engines like Google or Bing. Success depended on keywords, backlinks, page performance, and on-page content quality. Generative AI models such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot are rewriting those rules. Instead of showing users a list of links, these systems generate an answer, often summarizing information from multiple sources.
That’s where GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and GXO (Generative Experience Optimization) come in — the new layers of visibility that go beyond search rankings.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
GEO focuses on how your brand, content, and product data are understood and represented by generative engines - systems that create AI summaries or responses.
In simple terms, GEO is about making sure:
- AI engines recognize your store as a trusted source;
- your data is structured and accessible enough to be interpreted correctly;
- your brand and products are mentioned, cited, or linked in AI-generated answers.
If SEO was about getting ranked and clicked, GEO is about getting included ensuring your store’s data, content, and offers are part of the narrative an AI system builds in its response.
Example: When a user asks ChatGPT, “What are the best cruelty-free skincare brands in Europe?” the system might pull data from online reviews, product feeds, and structured metadata. If your Magento or Shopify store has clean schema, product attributes, and trust signals, like reviews on external platforms, your brand is more likely to appear in that answer.
GXO (Generative Experience Optimization)
While GEO focuses on visibility inside AI outputs, GXO is about the quality of the experience those AI systems deliver using your data.
Think of GXO as the “customer experience” side of AI commerce:
- How your product data enables rich, accurate, helpful responses.
- How your site fulfills the promise that the AI summary makes - accurate stock, clear pricing, consistent delivery info.
- How easily AI agents or assistants can complete the next step - add to cart, recommend, or generate a checkout link.
In practice, GXO overlaps with UX, data accuracy, and fulfillment reliability. If an AI recommends your store but users find incomplete data or broken checkout flows, the model will learn to trust you less over time.
From Ranking to Relevance
The core difference between SEO and GEO/GXO is where and how decisions are made:
| Focus Area | Traditional SEO | GEO | GXO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary System | Search engines (Google, Bing) | Generative engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity) | AI assistants & shopping agents |
| Goal | Rank high in SERPs | Be cited or referenced in AI answers | Deliver consistent, trustworthy product experiences |
| Optimization Inputs | Keywords, links, content, performance | Structured data, clarity, source authority | Data accuracy, UX consistency, integration readiness |
| Output | List of links | Synthesized AI response | Personalized recommendation or agentic action |
| User Action | Click and browse | Read summary | Buy directly in chat or agent flow |
In short:
SEO helps people find you. GEO and GXO help AI systems choose you.
Why Merchants Should Start Adapting Now
The rise of AI agents isn’t a distant forecast but it’s already happening. Platforms that once relied solely on search and recommendation algorithms are now deploying conversational AI to help customers discover and buy products faster.
- ChatGPT introduced Instant Checkout and product browsing directly in chat.
- Google Gemini and Bing Copilot can already suggest and compare items from shopping feeds.
- Walmart is testing AI shopping assistants that guide users through personalized recommendations and real-time cart building.
- Shopify continues to integrate with AI tools that allow customers to find and purchase products via chat, voice, and social channels.
These developments mark the start of a new layer of commerce, Agentic commerce, the one where AI intermediaries interpret customer intent, evaluate merchant data, and make product selections automatically.
The Shift in Visibility
In traditional search, visibility was measured by ranking position. In the AI-driven era, visibility depends on data quality, clarity, and trustworthiness.
If your Magento or Shopify store provides clean, structured, and up-to-date information:
- ✅ accurate pricing,
- ✅ real-time stock,
- ✅ transparent delivery and return policies, then AI systems can recommend your products.
But if your data feeds are inconsistent, schema incomplete, or policies missing, your store will simply be filtered out. AI doesn’t scroll or click, it chooses what it trusts.
The Advantage of Early Adopters
Merchants who start adapting now will gain a compounding advantage. Once AI systems “learn” that your data is accurate and your site performs reliably, that reputation becomes part of your digital trust profile.
Early adopters of GEO and GXO practices will:
- Earn early visibility in AI-generated shopping results and conversational assistants.
- Build durable data trust, strengthening both AI and traditional search performance.
- Lower dependency on ads or marketplaces, as their products become directly discoverable.
- Deliver better user experiences, satisfying both AI systems and human shoppers.
This mirrors what happened when mobile optimization first appeared, those who moved early dominated the next decade.
What GEO Means for Magento and Shopify Merchants
For eCommerce merchants, the implications are clear:
- Structured data (Schema.org, JSON-LD) is now your visibility language.
- API speed and data freshness matter as much as content quality.
- Trust signals - reviews, transparent policies, brand authority - influence whether AI systems select your store.
- Consistency across channels ensures AI assistants and humans receive the same information.
Good news for merchants using Shopify the platform automatically includes structured data in your store. All current Shopify-supported themes and those from the Theme Store come with Schema.org JSON-LD markup built into their code. This covers essential product information such as price, availability, and reviews, helping your products appear correctly in Google’s rich results.
However, AI agents need deeper and more explicit data than traditional search engines. To improve your GEO readiness, you can extend Shopify’s default markup by adding custom JSON-LD directly in Liquid (Shopify’s templating language). For example, you might include additional entities such as MerchantReturnPolicy, ShippingDetails, or Brand relationships giving AI systems more context and confidence to recommend your store.
Adobe is already preparing for the GEO era. The new Adobe LLM Optimizer enables brands to feed verified commerce and content data directly into large language models, ensuring AI systems learn from accurate, brand-safe information. While this solution operates above the storefront layer, it signals Adobe’s strategic move toward AI-ready data ecosystems, which will directly influence Generative Engine Optimization in the coming years.
Yes, Adobe’s LLM Optimizer is a significant enterprise-level step toward GEO for Adobe Commerce, but for most Adobe Commerce merchants, you’ll still need schema optimization (JSON-LD, product feeds, and API clarity) to be visible to AI agents today.
For merchants running on Magento Open Source structured data support is available but limited by default. The platform includes basic Schema.org JSON-LD markup for products, breadcrumbs, and organizational data, which helps with Google SEO but doesn’t fully prepare your store for AI-driven discovery.
To expand this, you can use SEO modules such as Mirasvit SEO Suite Ultimate, Mageworx SEO Suite Ultimate, or Amasty SEO Toolkit.
These tools automatically generate JSON-LD for products, categories, and CMS pages. But again, it won't fully meet AI agents expectations (if they do have any😁). For true GEO readiness, though, you have go further by implementing custom JSON-LD templates that include entities like MerchantReturnPolicy, ShippingDetails, or Offer enriched with priceValidUntil and availability attributes.
This gives AI systems complete, trustworthy context about your catalog and store policies, improving your visibility within AI agents and generative search results.
Traditional SEO remains important - it still drives organic visibility and conversions but it’s no longer the whole story. To appear in AI-generated shopping journeys, your store must be both technically interpretable and semantically trustworthy.
SEO helps people find you. GEO and GXO help AI systems choose you.
Best Tools and Metrics for GEO/GXO
To get the full value from GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and GXO (Generative Experience Optimization), implementation alone isn’t enough. You also need to monitor, measure, and validate making sure your structured data works as intended, your store is visible in AI-powered search, and your brand is represented accurately in generative answers.
It’s no longer just about keywords and rankings. You must track how AI agents interpret and display your store and products, whether your pricing and inventory are up to date, and how reliable your brand appears across the web.
Don’t forget that trust signals like customer reviews, ratings, and brand mentions now play a critical role. AI systems cross-check your reputation using third-party sources such as review platforms, marketplaces, and news mentions before recommending your products.
Market of AI visibility tools is growing fast, there are a lot of different options. But also most leading SEO platforms have already integrated AI analytics features.
1. Google Search Console
Your first stop for any visibility audit. Google Search Console shows structured data errors, rich result eligibility, and enhancement reports for products, reviews, and FAQs. It remains the most reliable way to confirm whether your JSON-LD schema is correctly interpreted and indexed.
2. Ahrefs
Ahrefs has evolved beyond traditional SEO analytics to include AI visibility insights. Its tools help you understand how your brand and content appear in AI-generated search experiences, including Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity results. The new AI Visibility Audit framework allows marketers to measure whether their pages are cited, summarized, or recommended by generative engines — giving a clearer view of brand presence in AI search.
🔗 AI Visibility Audit: How to Measure Your Brand’s Presence in AI Search 🔗 How to Monitor and Win Brand Mentions in AI Answers
3. Surfer SEO
Surfer SEO analyzes content structure, semantic coverage, and readability — all of which influence how generative engines interpret your pages. It’s especially useful for content clarity and entity optimization, helping you align with GEO’s focus on factual, machine-parsable language.
4. SE Ranking: AI Visibility Tracker
One of the first mainstream SEO tools to include AI visibility tracking. SE Ranking monitors how your brand or content appears in AI-generated search results, including Google AI Overviews and Chat-based answers. It’s a great starting point to measure your inclusion in AI-powered SERP features.
Their structured data guide also helps merchants understand how schema impacts both SEO and generative search.
5. Structured Data Validation Tools
Before measuring visibility, ensure your schema markup is valid and clean:
- Google Rich Results Test – checks eligibility for Product, Review, and FAQ rich snippets.
- Schema.org Validator – verifies that your JSON-LD follows Schema.org standards.
Run these after any theme or module update to maintain trust in your structured data.
📊 Key GEO/GXO Metrics to Track
| Metric | Why It Matters | How to Track |
|---|---|---|
| Structured Data Coverage | Shows how much of your site is machine-readable | GSC + Schema.org Validator |
| Schema Error Rate | High error rates reduce AI and search trust | Google Search Console Enhancements |
| Feed Freshness | AI agents prioritize up-to-date data | API or feed update intervals |
| AI Inclusion Frequency | Indicates how often your brand is cited by AI systems | SE Ranking AI Visibility Tracker |
| Content Clarity & Entity Accuracy | Improves how AI understands your content | Surfer SEO + Ahrefs content analysis |
| Trust Signal Completeness | Policies, reviews, and ratings influence inclusion | Manual schema audit (MerchantReturnPolicy, Review, etc.) |
Summary
The rise of AI-driven search and agentic commerce is redefining how visibility works in eCommerce. For merchants, this shift means that success will depend less on keyword rankings and more on data clarity, reliability, and machine interpretability.
Traditional SEO remains essential, but it’s only the foundation. The next phase GEO and GXO are about preparing your store to be understood and trusted by AI systems. That means structured data that’s complete, real-time product information that’s accurate, and brand signals that reflect genuine reliability.
Merchants who adapt early will gain a compounding advantage: AI agents will learn to trust their data first, include their products more often, and recommend their brands more confidently.
The technical work: schema, APIs, feed updates, must now go hand in hand with content quality, reputation management, and team collaboration. When all these elements align, your store becomes AI-visible, AI-verifiable, and ultimately AI-preferred.
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