The data: Product cards play an important role for consumers shopping on AI platforms, per ReFiBuy and Clickstream Solutions. US shoppers shared their screen with researchers as they navigated OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode, narrating their journey and decisions.

This is what the researchers found:

• 83.7% of final product choices stemmed from a product card, which displays an image, a product name, a price, and additional details chosen by AI.
• 75.3% of shopping tasks started with the product card, compared with 21.5% that started with written text.
• 43.4% of respondents opted for the first product card when multiple appeared.

What it means: Product cards are proving to be a core engagement driver for organic content in AI search platforms. Images are the most salient aspects of product cards—they offset items from a list of text-only recommendations that earn little user attention and provide transparency about products without forcing users to leave the platform.

Product cards also appear to be compelling shoppers to purchase the items shown. This finding reflects growing consumer confidence in AI-generated recommendations, since a product card is ultimately a neatly packaged recommendation that’s clickable. Brands that aim to show up in the product card may drive more conversions than those that settle for any visibility at all.

Recommendations for marketers: Focus generative engine optimization (GEO) on product card appearances, which hinges on making images available to AI search platforms.

• Condense critical product information—such as images, reviews, text descriptions, price, and availability—in product detail pages (PDPs) to form a quasi-product card. This will make it easier for AI crawlers to pull together information to build its own card.
• Share images directly with AI platforms through their respective product feed integration programs for merchants.

Trial ChatGPT’s new visual ad format to see whether users’ trust in images extends to sponsored content. However, prepare for significantly different engagement metrics—the ad isn’t an organic recommendation and is limited to the window between when a user requests an image and the image is complete.

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