The content of this article is provided for informational purposes only. You should always obtain independent business, tax, financial, and legal advice before making any business decision.
Key takeaways:
AI product discovery is becoming the new storefront.
Instead of scrolling search results, shoppers are asking AI assistants what to buy. Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini now sit between merchants and customers. This shapes which products get surfaced and considered.
A product may not appear in these conversations if it isn’t legible to AI. And if it doesn’t inspire confidence when it does, the sale could go to someone else. AI product discovery is changing how products get considered.
Learn how shoppers use AI assistants for product discovery and how you can use PayPal to help your shoppers have a smooth experience.
Table of contents
AI product discovery is when consumers use AI assistants to find, research, compare, and sometimes purchase products through conversational interactions. Tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Alexa help shoppers quickly compare options and narrow their choices.
This represents a significant shift from traditional product discovery. Historically, shoppers bounced between search results, product pages, and reviews. But search results didn’t always match user intent. Research was fragmented. This friction drove up bounce and cart abandonment rates, which lowers both conversions and average order value.
Traditional product discovery | AI-powered product discovery |
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Shoppers use AI assistants to shortcut the entire buying journey. They ask one question and refine from there instead of researching in pieces. Think of this as a sequence of steps:
If a product isn't clearly described, it’s less likely to make it into that short list.
AI assistants are becoming a discovery layer between shoppers and merchants. Each platform shapes product discovery differently based on how it gathers data. Understanding these differences helps merchants know where and how their products are likely to surface.
Google Gemini is positioning itself as a deeply agentic shopping companion. The tool taps into its 50 billion listings Shopping Graph to deliver visual product inspiration, side-by-side comparisons, contact stores, and even uses automated “agentic” checkout after meeting pricing conditions.1
To appear in Gemini's Shopping Graph, merchants should ensure their product feeds include high-quality images, detailed specifications, and structured pricing data.
ChatGPT has evolved from text-only recommendations to a full shopping assistant. Users will see summarized reviews, product cards, and merchant options directly in the chat.
New features like Shopping Research and Instant Checkout let users generate tailored buying guides and complete purchases inside ChatGPT. This turns a single prompt into an end-to-end customer experience from product discovery to checkout.
Perplexity’s shopping experience focuses on highly contextual product research. The AI uses details like the user's location, lifestyle, and prior queries to tailor recommendations.
Product cards surface pros and cons, plus review insights. Pro users in supported regions can use “Buy with Pro” to check out within Perplexity. Users can also rely on the “Snap to Shop” image search to find visually similar items.
Amazon’s shift to Alexa+ turns voice shopping from simple reorders into a generative AI-driven discovery channel. It’s integrated with Amazon’s wider commerce stack.
Alexa+ can hold more natural conversations and coordinate with tools like Rufus for deep product Q&A. Users can even progress towards “buy for me” scenarios when the AI assistant finds deals and completes orders on their behalf.
Emerging agentic AI platforms are evolving into a stack of specialized e-commerce agents that automate product discovery through purchasing end-to-end.
These agents have varying roles that help enhance the customer experience, from personal shopping assistant to in-store support to commerce agents. It reframes product discovery as something continuous and delegated rather than a series of manual searches.
PayPal's partnership with Perplexity can help make products easier to find, evaluate, and purchase.
Consumers are moving toward AI-powered shopping journeys that feel more like conversations than searches. They expect AI assistants to handle everything from inspiration and comparison to checkout in a single flow. It’s a shift reinforced by broader retailer trends such as the move from basic AI hype to actionable AI deployment and a heavy focus on personalization.
Over time, shoppers will also expect AI agents to remember their preferences, like style, budget, and values, to deliver more personal recommendations.
PayPal is positioning its products at the center of this shift. Tools like PayPal Honey already connect AI recommendations to real-time pricing. Its agentic commerce services, Agent Ready Payments and Store Sync, help make it easy for AI to discover and buy from merchants.
Together with PayPal’s identity tools and buyer protections, they create the trust layer needed to turn AI product discovery into completed purchases.
AI-powered shoppers expect merchant experiences to be as seamless as the assistants guiding them. Meeting these expectations helps products appear more often in AI shortlists and convert better when shoppers arrive.
Accurate, structured data and personalization make listings easier for AI to trust, while clear disclosure and checkout features like PayPal’s fraud –protection can help reduce cart abandonment, increase revenue per session, and build repeat loyalty.
AI shoppers expect complete and accurate product information because AI assistants rely on it to evaluate options on their behalf. Improving product information as part of the greater product discovery optimization strategy help AI to understand what a product is, who it’s for, and when it makes sense to recommend.
AI assistants summarize and compare products in seconds. Vague messaging gets ignored when AI explains why one option is better than another. Merchants that clearly state why their product is worth choosing give AI the clarity it needs to confidently recommend them.
AI assistants factor cost and fulfillment into recommendations early. Hidden costs, unclear pricing, or outdated stock information create uncertainty. That can make the AI less likely to surface a product. Retailers that are vague risk losing trust and conversions.
Reviews, ratings, and third-party mentions help AI determine whether a product is reliable and worth recommending. This is especially true when the brand is unfamiliar. Consistent, credible proof across platforms, such as setting up Instagram Shopping, sends strong trust signals. It makes it more likely that AI assistants will surface the product during discovery.
AI-shoppers expect fast, trusted checkout experiences because AI-driven discovery builds momentum that can disappear quickly. Friction at checkout can derail the purchase after an assistant recommends a product.
With consumers prioritizing fast transactions and strong fraud protection, merchants that offer trusted options like PayPal’s single click checkout and built-in fraud protection position themselves to turn recommendations into completed purchases.
AI product discovery creates real upside for merchants. AI assistants introduce shoppers to products early in the journey. Merchants with enriched, structured product data gain a clear advantage because AI treats that data as the primary input for recommendations.
However, the risks are just as real. Poor or inconsistent product data can make products invisible to AI. These AI tools can also misinterpret or fabricate information if the inputs aren’t clear, and models may introduce bias or blind spots without human oversight, which can distort recommendations.
Control over discovery shifts away from merchant-owned pages to AI interpretation across the web. That means reviews, marketplace listings, and third-party content all influence whether a product gets recommended.
Benefits | Risks |
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AI product discovery is moving from guidance to delegation. Conversational recommendations are evolving into acting on the shopper’s behalf. Discovery, evaluation, and purchase will soon collapse into a single automated workflow.
This shift unlocks agent-to-agent commerce. That’s where AI systems interact directly with merchant platforms to check inventory and complete checkout without a traditional storefront visit.
AI can recommend your product, but the journey still ends at checkout. That final moment matters, especially when an AI assistant sends shoppers to a merchant they’ve never bought from before. Seeing a trusted brand like PayPal at checkout can provide instant reassurance right when they're making a decision.
AI product discovery is changing how shoppers find what to buy. By pairing AI visibility with a seamless checkout, businesses can turn AI-driven interest into revenue. Explore how PayPal Agentic Commerce helps merchants turn AI product discovery into completed purchases.