AI forces retailers, brands to rethink their product pages

AI product page strategies can include everything from adding new content to product pages, removing some JavaScript elements from the pages that bots may not be able to see or feeding the bots with text-only versions of the pages. Heads of tech companies who work with brands and retailers on AI strategy told Modern Retail they are focused on making product pages more visible to AI agents, but also more interactive for consumers who may land directly on a PDP rather than on the website home page.

Supplement maker Olly, for example, has started adding a “frequently asked questions” section to its product pages, explaining the ingredients and their efficacy. Jennifer Peters, Olly’s director of DTC, marketing technology and digital compliance, told Modern Retail that this was meant to lead LLM users asking about what to do when having a hard time sleeping straight to Olly’s sleep gummies.

Target has updated its website to be “machine-readable” for both internal and external AI engines to pull from, Ranjeet Bhosale, vp of digital product management at Target, said at Shoptalk last fall. He said that the majority of customers were still using traditional, one- or two-keyword searches, but that some have started turning to longer, more conversational queries.

Max Sinclair, founder and CEO of Azoma, a company focused on AI commerce optimization, said that on product pages, retailers need to answer the questions customers are asking AI agents. For running shoes, that would be something like, “Does this ache 20 miles in while running a marathon?”

But even if the answer is on the product page, that doesn’t necessarily mean the bots will see it. AJ Ghergich, global vp of AI at Botify, which helps brands be visible in both traditional search and through AI agents, said many of the AI bots struggle to read and parse JavaScript and other elements. So, some may be missing information found within some elements found on product pages.

“If you go look at a lot of product pages, there’s JavaScript everywhere — carousels, floating things. Looks cool, but is it machine-readable?” Ghergich said. He added that review modules, in particular, are often JavaScript-heavy and almost never seen by agents in the way retailers would expect them to.

Still, retailers may want consumers to see those interactive elements, leaving some to create new text-based versions of the product pages that are only visible to the bots.

“They’re kind of straddling a fence post right now,” Ghergich said, adding that retailers still realize that the vast majority of their revenue is coming from traditional web users. “I’ve yet to see anyone who has north of 5% of their revenue attributed to AI. … You can’t just go crazy caring just about AI, when 95% of your revenue’s flowing from traditional.”

As a compromise, they’ll use content delivery services like Cloudflare to identify the bots and serve them specialized, text-only pages, Ghergich said. “The jury’s out on that, … but we’ve seen good early data from that,” he said. “It can be a really fast, quick solution.”

Ghergich said it’s important for retailers to update FAQs and customer reviews to highlight high-intent reviews that show why customers use the products, not just what the products do. He said that while SEO strategies focused on including as many details about the products on the page, AI optimization is all about answering questions such as, “Can this stroller go over gravel at the park?”

Ghergich expects that over the next year, retailers will push their product data into agents through services like Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol rather than waiting for the agents to crawl their websites. Google’s UCP works as a universal language that allows different stores, apps and platforms to talk to each other in the same way, according to Digiday.

Outside of the product pages themselves, Sinclair recommends retailers build an app in ChatGPT to start seeing some data about how people are engaging with their store via AI agents, or what kind of questions they are asking them. He also advises retailers and brands to look at which sources shopping apps like Alexa for Shopping and Sparky are citing and make sure they’re featured there.

Some retailers have started using AI to write more narrative-based copy — as in, more storytelling on the product page around how products are actually used — that could then be picked up by AI agents, said Blaine Nielsen, president of the retail division for Rithum. The company works with retailers and brands to optimize and distribute product content across marketplaces, retail media networks and e-commerce channels. “It’s pretty early innings,” Nielsen said. “People don’t have real hard numbers on how effective it is, but they are seeing positive trends.”

Ghergich also said “product pages are the new front door,” as in, through AI, many consumers’ first visit to the retailer’s site will be on the product page, rather than a homepage or category page. “In the past, we positioned those to be the third thing you hit, or the fourth, as you do brand discovery,” he said.

Retailers have also implemented video content on their websites — especially content featuring influencers — in response to the growth of social commerce. LLMs may not be able to see this content, but it may be more engaging for the customers who do make it to the website.

Sam’s Club, for example, is beginning to add videos with “expert reviews” to product pages for brands wanting to boost credibility and engagement. To create the new videos, Sam’s Club hires an expert whose niche is within the same space as the product — whether it be cooking, tech, science or health — to talk about the benefits and features in a video that plays on the product page.

“The best outcome for the retailers is, yes, you discover it on the LLM, you come to my website, but you’re blown away by my website being so interactive and rich that you start to think, ‘Oh, I could just come here next time,’” Nielsen said.