While many retailers are stuck in a frenzy over ChatGPT, Google Gemini and its associated AI surfaces offer a semi-direct path to listing your products right now. By simply submitting a standard Google Merchant Center feed, your products have an excellent chance of surfacing in both organic and paid AI listings throughout the Google ecosystem.
Google currently provides AI-driven results across three primary areas:
- AI Overviews at the top of standard search results
- AI Mode, which is a dedicated conversational section within the search results
- The Gemini chatbot itself, found at gemini.google.com in both free and paid versions
In all of these areas, products submitted via a Google Merchant Center feed can appear organically at no cost! Additionally, AI Overviews and AI Mode can display paid ads that also originate from your existing feed. As of March 2026, the Gemini chatbot only shows organic product placements, though there is speculation that paid ads will be introduced later this year.
To maximize organic placements, make sure you’re submitting a high-quality product feed. Including as many attributes as possible -- such as material, pattern, color, size, product_highlight, and product_detail -- will maximize your chances of appearing in organic AI results.
Beyond the standard product feed attributes, there may be additional data fields coming soon. Reading between the lines of Google’s official documentation, there is a suggestion that Google could introduce new attributes designed for conversational discovery. These might go beyond traditional keywords to include specific answers to product questions, compatible accessories, or similar. Considering that OpenAI has already requested attributes like q_and_a and reviews, it's possible that Google will follow suit. You should keep an eye on official announcements and be ready to implement these new attributes in your feed as they go live.
For those looking to go the extra mile, Google also offers the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). Implementing UCP on your website enables "agentic checkout," allowing consumers to purchase products from your store directly inside the Gemini interface. If you go this route, you must also tag the specific products in your feed with the attribute native_commerce = True.
Google already provides a wide array of AI surfaces for product discovery, and the process is generally somewhat clearer than the current OpenAI pilot programs. Because Google has spent decades building its advertising infrastructure, the path to entry is more established for most retailers.
While the above strategies are a great starting point, enterprise businesses often need a more tailored game plan to navigate the complexities of AI on Google. VersaFeed is happy to help you build a customized roadmap to ensure your inventory is optimized for the next generation of search.