What changed in how people find and buy
Four changes that decide which brands get found and which channels can sell. Every fact links to the page it came from. Where a platform says something is planned, we say planned.
Citation: how AI answers choose which brands to name
Assistants answer with sources. These are the documented rules and the measured patterns behind who gets named.
Google states there are no additional requirements or special optimisations needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.
Source: Google Search Central: AI features and your website · read 2 Nov 2026Google states site owners do not need new machine readable files, AI text files or markup to appear in its AI features.
Source: Google Search Central: AI features and your website · read 2 Nov 2026Google asks site owners to make sure crawling is allowed in robots.txt and by any CDN or hosting infrastructure.
Source: Google Search Central: AI features and your website · read 2 Nov 2026Ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode are labelled Sponsored and Google states paid advertising does not influence the organic AI responses.
Source: Google Ads Help: about ads in AI-powered experiences in Google Search · read 2 Nov 2026Profound (9 March 2026) analysed 1.4 million citations across ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity and found LinkedIn the most cited domain for professional queries on all six.
Source: Profound: LinkedIn is the most cited domain for professional queries in AI search · 9 March 2026Semrush (10 March 2026, in collaboration with LinkedIn) ran 325,000 prompts through ChatGPT Search, Google AI Mode and Perplexity and examined 89,000 cited LinkedIn URLs; LinkedIn was cited in about 11 percent of answers.
Source: Semrush: we analysed 89,000 LinkedIn URLs cited in AI search · 10 March 2026Semrush ran its study in collaboration with LinkedIn, so read it with that in mind. Both studies show that citations concentrate on a few sources and that ordinary accounts can earn them. They cover professional and LinkedIn content, so check your own category.
The four OpenAI agents and what each does
OAI-SearchBotSurfaces websites in ChatGPT search. Sites that opt out are not shown in ChatGPT search answers.
Source: OpenAI: overview of OpenAI crawlers · read 2 Nov 2026GPTBotCollects content that may be used to train OpenAI models. Disallowing it signals that your content should not be used for training.
Source: OpenAI: overview of OpenAI crawlers · read 2 Nov 2026ChatGPT-UserActs on certain user requests in ChatGPT and Custom GPTs. Robots.txt rules may not apply to it.
Source: OpenAI: overview of OpenAI crawlers · read 2 Nov 2026OAI-AdsBotNew. Checks the safety of web pages submitted as ads on ChatGPT. It visits only pages submitted as ads.
Source: OpenAI: overview of OpenAI crawlers · read 2 Nov 2026AI answers name brands they can read, trust and verify. The levers are open crawling for the agents you want, complete product data and a presence on the sources the platforms cite. Google states that paid ads do not influence its organic AI answers and we know of no paid route into any organic answer. Anyone selling a guaranteed placement is selling something that does not exist.
The search change: AI answers above the links
About three in ten UK Google searches now show an AI summary and shoppers also put questions to assistants. What the platforms and Ofcom say.
About 30 percent of Google searches in the UK showed an AI overview in 2025 and 53 percent of adults said they see these summaries often.
Source: Ofcom: From apps to AI search, how the UK goes online in 2025 · 10 December 2025UK visits to ChatGPT in the first eight months of 2025, up from 368 million in the same period of 2024.
Source: Ofcom: From apps to AI search, how the UK goes online in 2025 · 10 December 2025UK search advertising in 2025, up 6 percent and 44 percent of the digital ad market. IAB UK notes a methodology change, so earlier editions do not compare.
Source: IAB UK: Digital Adspend 2025 · 3 March 2026Google said on 28 October 2026 that it plans to expand ads in AI Mode to additional locales including the United Kingdom in Q4 2026.
Source: Google: Ads in AI Mode expand to 10 new countries · 28 October 2026Ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode run in English in the United States and a listed set of English-speaking markets; the United Kingdom is still absent from Google's help page list as of 2 November 2026.
Source: Google Ads Help: about ads in AI-powered experiences in Google Search · read 2 Nov 2026FAQ rich results stopped appearing in Google Search on 7 May 2026 and Google removed the FAQ documentation on 15 June 2026; FAQPage is absent from Google's structured data gallery.
Source: Google Search Central: documentation updates (changelog entries 8 May 2026 and 15 June 2026) · 8 May 2026GA4's AI Assistant channel covers visits from sources like ChatGPT, Gemini, Deepseek, Copilot or Grok and excludes Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, which sit under Organic Search.
Source: Google Analytics Help: traffic source dimensions and default channel definitions · read 2 Nov 2026Search Console's generative AI performance report for Search shows impressions only, for AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, date and device; it launched on 3 June 2026 to a subset of sites and rolled out to all websites worldwide on 31 August 2026.
Source: Google Search Console Help: Search generative AI performance report · read 2 Nov 2026Google's Merchant Center AI performance insights remain limited to accounts in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and the United States, for English queries and organic traffic only; the UK is still excluded.
Source: Google Merchant Center Help: about AI performance insights · read 2 Nov 2026The results page now has an AI summary above the links for a large share of searches and shoppers also ask assistants directly. Being findable means being readable by all three: Google, the AI answer engines and the search box inside each channel. FAQ markup no longer earns a rich result in Google, so we write answers for readers first and treat structured data as housekeeping.
Live commerce: the state of the channel and the dates ahead
Live shopping grows in the UK on TikTok and Whatnot and has a different shape on each platform. Then the calendar.
TikTok says TikTok Shop LIVE in the UK grew 55 percent year on year, with more than 6,000 LIVE sessions a day. This is TikTok's own figure.
Source: TikTok Newsroom UK: TikTok Shop LIVE powers growth for sneakers, streetwear and collectables · 4 August 2026LIVE auction accounted for 40 percent of UK collectables sales on TikTok Shop in June 2026, in a category that grew 84 percent year on year.
Source: TikTok Newsroom UK: TikTok Shop LIVE powers growth for sneakers, streetwear and collectables · 4 August 2026Whatnot reported 8 billion dollars of gross merchandise value from live sales in 2025, more than double the year before.
Source: Tubefilter: Whatnot breaks down the live shopping industry (State of Live Selling report 2026) · 28 January 2026Online share of all Great Britain retail sales in September 2026, after reaching 29.4 percent in June 2026.
Source: ONS: Retail sales, Great Britain, September 2026 · 23 October 2026Whatnot announced a 545 million dollar Series G at a 20 billion dollar valuation on 7 August 2026, led by ICONIQ, Lightspeed and Avra, as reported by Retail Insight Network, Dealroom and FashionUnited.
Source: Retail Insight Network: Whatnot raises 545m Series G · August 2026Amazon Live is still running: amazon.com/live and amazon.co.uk/live both served a live shopping page on 2 November 2026 titled Watch and Shop top Amazon deals and products.
Source: Amazon Live · read 2 Nov 2026Instagram and Facebook have had no native live shopping since 2023; Shops remain for discovery and send buyers to the merchant's website.
Source: Meta Business Help Centre: about changes to Shops and checkout on Facebook and Instagram · read 2 Nov 2026YouTube supports live shopping through product tagging in live streams for creators with a connected store or affiliate eligibility, with checkout on the retailer's site; the UK is on the affiliate country list.
Source: YouTube Help: tag products in your live streams · read 2 Nov 2026From 24 August 2026 YouTube counts a view from the first frame across Shorts, long form, podcasts and live; the old definition is now called an engaged view.
Source: YouTube blog: engaged views on YouTube, explained · 19 August 2026Dates to plan live commerce around, November 2026 to May 2027
We list only dates that a first-party page confirms. Platform promotion windows for Black Friday are set by each platform, so check the seller notices for yours.
Live commerce in the UK is measurable now, mostly on TikTok and Whatnot. Instagram and Facebook have had no native live shopping since 2023 and YouTube and Amazon take different routes to it. The calendar gives four selling peaks to plan shows around: Singles' Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Valentine's Day and Mothering Sunday. Parcel cut-off dates decide how late a Christmas show can run.
The checkout change: buying inside the answer
Checkout is moving into assistants and carts. Most of it is US only today, with the UK promised for later.
Shoppers compare in ChatGPT and buy on the merchant's own site or app. OpenAI charges no fees on purchases that start in ChatGPT.
Source: OpenAI: Power product discovery in ChatGPT (merchant page) · read 2 Nov 2026OpenAI is moving away from a standalone Instant Checkout in ChatGPT and prioritising discovery and merchant-owned checkout.
Source: OpenAI: Power product discovery in ChatGPT (merchant page) · read 2 Nov 2026The merchant stays the seller of record. Google says the UK follows later and gives no date.
Source: Google Merchant Center Help: about the Universal Commerce Protocol and UCP-powered checkout · read 2 Nov 2026Launched across Google Search and the Gemini app in the United States.
Source: Google: Universal Cart launches today in the U.S. · 15 October 2026Open to English-language merchants selling to US buyers. Microsoft takes no commission and gives no timeline for expansion.
Source: Microsoft Advertising: agentic commerce and Copilot Checkout · read 2 Nov 2026Shops on Facebook and Instagram use website checkout, so customers finish on the merchant's own website.
Source: Meta Business Help Centre: about changes to Shops and checkout on Facebook and Instagram · read 2 Nov 2026Across Google, OpenAI, Microsoft and Meta the merchant stays the seller of record or the buyer lands on the merchant's own checkout. Checkout is separating from the channel where the shopper found the product. For a brand that means two jobs: be easy to buy from on your own site and keep your product data clean enough for every checkout that arrives. We would not tell a UK brand that AI checkout is live for UK shoppers today.
Plan for what changed
Bring your channels and your product data. We will say which of these changes matter to you now and which can wait.
Your first call 30 min
- A call with a strategist30 min
- Where you sell and are found todayreviewed
- Channels worth testing nextdiscussed
- Your biggest tracking gapflagged
- Feesscoped after a channel plan