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Buy It in ChatGPT: What AI Shopping Means for SEO and Ecommerce

A Turning Point in Ecommerce and SEO


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When I first read that ChatGPT now allows users to buy products directly inside the app, my reaction was: we knew this was coming. The way people shop online is shifting again, and as business owners and marketers, we need to pay attention.


For years, we’ve optimized for Google search and managed traffic through websites and analytics tools. Now, OpenAI has launched “Buy It in ChatGPT,” which lets users complete purchases without ever visiting your site. That changes the rules of the game for SEO, attribution, and ecommerce strategy.


Do Purchases in ChatGPT Count as Website Visits?


The short answer: no. Purchases inside ChatGPT don’t show up as traditional website sessions in Google Analytics. Users can discover, evaluate, and buy a product without clicking to your site. That means traffic numbers alone won’t tell the whole story anymore.


As a business owner, that can feel uncomfortable. We’ve all been trained to measure “sessions” and “conversion rates.” But in this new environment, we’ll need to expand our thinking to include sales that happen outside the website funnel.


Why This Matters for SEO & Marketing Attribution


Attribution is the lifeblood of digital marketing. Knowing where your conversions come from helps justify budgets, optimize campaigns, and scale profitable channels. But Instant Checkout threatens to break this chain of visibility.


The Traditional Attribution Flow


Normally, an SEO-driven customer journey looks something like this:

  • User searches on Google → clicks on your organic result

  • Lands on your site → browses products

  • Adds to cart → completes checkout

  • Google Analytics (GA) records sessions, events, and revenue attribution

In this model, SEO gets its fair share of credit.


The New Instant Checkout Flow


With ChatGPT Instant Checkout, the flow looks more like this:

  • User chats with ChatGPT → sees your product

  • Clicks “Buy now” → completes checkout inside ChatGPT

  • Transaction happens without ever landing on your site

  • GA doesn’t log a session, UTM, or conversion event


That means the credit disappears in GA, and businesses relying solely on Google Analytics will miss critical pieces of the puzzle.


What This Means for Google Analytics


Google Analytics isn’t going away, but it will become less complete on its own. It won’t track sales closed inside AI platforms like ChatGPT. To see the full picture, companies will need to stitch together multiple data sources:


  • Google Analytics for website traffic

  • AI commerce reporting (Order and revenue data from your shopping cart or ERP)

  • Payment data (Stripe, PayPal, etc.)


The companies that will win here are those that eventually offer holistic tracking and attribution. Imagine platforms or agencies that can merge ecommerce data from your shopping cart or ERP with traffic data from GA into one dashboard. To my knowledge, no one has solved this for AI-driven purchases yet, which makes it inaccessible to most businesses today. I expect this to become a bigger conversation over the next year as demand grows and technology catches up.


How This Impacts SEO


Here’s the uncomfortable truth: SEO has always been about visibility, but visibility doesn’t guarantee a site visit anymore. In ChatGPT’s shopping experience, products are surfaced “based on relevance.” That sounds a lot like search optimization, but the “search engine” is no longer Google.


So what does SEO look like in this new world?

  • Optimizing product feeds for AI platforms will become critical

  • Structured data (schema) and clean metadata may influence relevance

  • Brand presence and reviews may play into which products AI chooses to surface

  • Content still matters, but the role shifts. Your content may not just attract site traffic, it may train AI models to view your brand as relevant


In other words: SEO is not dead, but it is evolving.


What This Means for Ecommerce Businesses


If you run an ecommerce store, this is both an opportunity and a challenge. On one hand, being able to sell directly in ChatGPT could open new sales channels without the friction of a website visit. On the other, you lose some control over the customer journey and you’ll need new ways to measure attribution.


The businesses that thrive will be:

  • Nimble. Willing to adapt reporting, tracking, and strategy quickly

  • Integrated. Using tools that combine analytics across multiple channels

  • Forward-thinking. Understanding that customers may increasingly transact outside the website funnel


The Bottom Line: Stay Nimble


The reality is, we don’t know all the details yet. The way ChatGPT ranks products, the reporting tools merchants will have access to, and the long-term impact on organic website traffic are still evolving.


What I do know is this: ignoring these changes isn’t an option. As SEO professionals, we’ll need to broaden our definition of “visibility” to include AI platforms. As business owners, we’ll need to rethink how we measure and attribute success.


The companies that win will be the ones that adapt quickly, invest in integrated tracking, and aren’t afraid to test new ways of reaching customers, even when the old playbook starts to feel outdated.


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