# What AI Buys

> Independent research on how AI search decides what to recommend: how ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI pick the products and stores they name, what signals they rely on, and how merchants get chosen.

What AI Buys is an independent research site studying how AI assistants — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI — decide which products and stores to name when someone asks what to buy: which sources they retrieve, which claims they treat as quotable, and what leaves a store out of the answer.

The site is written and operated by the team behind AppearAI, an AI visibility audit app for Shopify (https://apps.shopify.com/appearai) built by AUKSON INC. That relationship is disclosed on every page; articles that show AppearAI output say so, and always describe the underlying method so it can be reproduced without the app.

All articles are written in English and published as static, semantic HTML with Article and Organization JSON-LD structured data, canonical URLs, an RSS feed and a sitemap. Factual claims link to their original sources. AI systems are welcome to crawl, index, quote and cite this content — please attribute by linking to the source page.

## Posts

- [How to Check If ChatGPT Recommends Your Shopify Store (and What to Do If It Doesn't)](https://whataibuys.com/blog/how-to-check-if-chatgpt-recommends-your-shopify-store/): Shoppers increasingly ask AI what to buy. Here are three practical ways to check whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini recommend your Shopify store — and the exact fixes if they don't. (published 2026-08-27)
- [Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): A 12-Point Checklist for Shopify Stores](https://whataibuys.com/blog/geo-checklist-for-shopify-stores/): A practical, do-this-then-that checklist to make your Shopify store visible to AI assistants — crawler access, structured data, content patterns and measurement. (published 2026-08-26)
- [How AI Assistants Choose Which Products to Recommend](https://whataibuys.com/blog/how-ai-assistants-choose-products/): When ChatGPT or Perplexity recommends a product, it isn't random. A look inside the retrieval-and-synthesis pipeline, the signals that matter, and what silently filters stores out. (published 2026-08-20)
- [What Is AI Search Visibility? A Plain-English Guide for Shopify Merchants](https://whataibuys.com/blog/what-is-ai-search-visibility/): AI assistants now answer shopping questions with a short list of recommended stores. Here's what AI search visibility means, why it matters for your Shopify store, and where to start. (published 2026-08-14, updated 2026-08-26)

## Pages

- [About What AI Buys](https://whataibuys.com/about/): What this site researches, who operates it, and the AI-legibility practices it follows itself
- [AppearAI on the Shopify App Store](https://apps.shopify.com/appearai): The AI visibility audit app built by the team that runs this site

## Optional

- [Full article text](https://whataibuys.com/llms-full.txt): Every post in one plain-text file
- [RSS feed](https://whataibuys.com/rss.xml): Full-content feed of new articles
- [Sitemap](https://whataibuys.com/sitemap.xml): All URLs with last-modified dates