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The new intermediary
For a growing share of purchases, the first answer a buyer sees is generated, not a list of ten blue links. Being on page one of Google matters less if the assistant summarising page one never mentions you.
Feeds and structured data are the entry ticket
A clean, complete product feed with price, availability, GTIN and clear attributes is what makes a catalogue usable by a machine. This is the same unglamorous data hygiene that has always driven marketplace success.
Write the answer, not the keyword
Assistants quote content that answers a question completely. A page that clearly states what a part fits, what it does not fit and when it ships is quotable. A page stuffed with keywords is not.
Measure it, or you are guessing
Track referrals from assistant traffic separately, and periodically ask the assistants the questions your customers ask. If you never appear, you have a data problem, not a marketing problem.
- Clean feeds and structured data are the entry ticket.
- Write pages that fully answer a question.
- Ask the assistants your customers' questions.
Frequently asked questions
There is no submission form and nobody can promise you a spot — anyone selling you one is selling you a guess. What you can control is whether your catalogue is readable by a machine at all: complete feed, GTIN, honest price and availability, clear attributes. That is a precondition, not a ticket. The mechanics change constantly; clean data survives the changes.
Be sceptical. Most of what is sold as generative engine optimisation right now is guessing dressed as method — the systems are closed, they change without notice, and nobody outside them has a reliable causal picture. If someone shows you a repeatable lever, ask what it is. Usually it turns out to be feed hygiene and pages that answer questions, which has a much older name.
Two things, both unglamorous. Split assistant referrals out in your analytics instead of letting them disappear into direct traffic. Then, once a quarter, sit down and ask the assistants the questions your customers actually ask, and note whether you appear. If you never do, that is usually a data problem in your feed, not a marketing problem.
Not for AI specifically — for someone who wants an answer. A page that states plainly what a part fits, what it does not fit, and when it ships can be quoted, by an assistant and by your own sales team. A page built around keyword density cannot be quoted, because there is no sentence in it worth lifting. Same rewrite either way.
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