The rise of AI Answer Engines has created a fundamental shift in how consumers discover products, moving from traditional search to conversational AI. This has resulted in a critical blind spot for retailers, who lack visibility into how and why their products are being recommended. Profound has launched Shopping Analysis, a breakthrough solution designed to make this "invisible commerce layer" visible, providing brands with crucial insights into their presence within AI-powered shopping conversations.
Profound launches Shopping Analysis to track product visibility in AI Answer Engines.
Over 60% of consumers now start product research with AI assistants, not search engines.
The tool reveals how products are described and recommended against competitors.
It captures product images and placement within AI conversations, going beyond text analysis.
Retailers can monitor unprompted product recommendations made by AI on their behalf.
The solution helps brands optimize for AI-first discovery and drive conversions.
The retail landscape is being reshaped by AI, but brands are operating without crucial data. When consumers ask AI assistants for help with problems like sleep or productivity, the AI often provides unprompted product recommendations. Profound's research found that over one-third of AI conversations contain these unsolicited suggestions. This creates an "invisible commerce layer" where machines act as personal shopping assistants, and retailers have no insight into how their products are being presented or why.
Shopping Analysis is built specifically to address this new reality. It enables retailers to track which of their products appear in AI shopping conversations and monitor their visibility rates and competitive positioning. The platform goes beyond traditional tools by capturing actual product images and their placement within the conversation. This gives brands a complete picture of the specific attributes—such as "best budget" or "premium performance"—that Answer Engines assign to their products, allowing them to understand how AI is speaking on their behalf.
This new capability moves Profound directly into the growth and performance space for marketers. By tying shopping and non-shopping results together, the platform provides a clearer view of how content ultimately drives conversions. It empowers retail, ecommerce, and marketing teams to evaluate merchant performance, prioritize relationships, and make data-driven optimizations that increase product visibility within the AI-driven purchase funnel, ensuring they can capitalize on the shift to AI-powered commerce.
The launch of Shopping Analysis marks a pivotal step in adapting to the AI-first consumer journey. By making the invisible processes of AI Answer Engines transparent, Profound provides retailers with the tools needed to control their narrative, understand new demand signals, and actively participate in the conversational recommendations that are increasingly guiding consumer purchases.
About Profound
AI is the new front door to every business. People no longer search, they ask AI. Profound is a new-age marketing platform relied on by thousands of leaders globally to understand and control what AI says about their brand, and empower their teams to create AI-optimized content that increases brand awareness. Trusted by industry titans like Figma, Ramp, MongoDB, Chime, and U.S. Bank, Profound arms marketers with the tools to win in a future where AI agents, not blue links, define discovery. Win the zero-click internet with Profound.
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