AI SEO: How AI Is Changing SEO (2027)

AI SEO helps your business appear in traditional search results and AI-generated answers. That means improving your pages’ rankings and increasing the chances that search engines will cite your content when answering shoppers’ questions.

In Shopify’s Q4 2025 Survey of Store Owners,* 75% of store owners said they use AI tools. For SEO, AI can assist with research and content improvements. AI-generated search answers also create another route for shoppers to discover your store.

This guide covers how AI can help with everyday SEO work and how you can improve your website’s visibility in AI-generated search results.

What is AI SEO?

AI SEO, or artificial intelligence search engine optimization, involves two practices:

• Applying AI tools to improve traditional search performance
• Optimizing your content for visibility in answers from AI search engines

For everyday SEO work, AI tools can group related keywords, summarize research, and suggest content edits. Generative AI can also draft new text, which you review for accuracy and relevance before publishing.

Optimizing for AI answers focuses on getting your content selected as a source. In its 2025 AI Intelligence Report, Comscore found that more than 30% of desktop Google searches displayed an AI Overview.

Two related terms describe this work:

• Answer engine optimization (AEO). Preparing content for systems that answer questions directly. This content will be pulled to appear in places like Google AI Overviews.
• Generative engine optimization (GEO). Focusing specifically on visibility in answers created by generative AI, including brand mentions and source citations. This content will be cited in responses formulated by LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude.

Marketers often use AEO and GEO interchangeably when discussing AI search. For online stores, AEO for ecommerce focuses on helping shoppers find and evaluate products through AI-generated answers.

This article will cover 1) how to use AI to do SEO and 2) how to get cited in AI answers. Here’s a brief overview of each:

For Google’s AI features, standard SEO practices apply. Publish helpful, reliable content and make sure Google can crawl and index your pages. These steps help your content qualify for inclusion in both traditional results and AI answers.

How to use AI for SEO

• Determining search rankings
• Identifying website optimization opportunities
• Researching keywords
• Summarizing research
• Helping write content

AI can help you identify SEO problems, plan content, and improve existing pages. Simply choose a task from your SEO strategy and give AI the relevant website data. Don’t implement the changes without reviewing them first.

You will also need to decide which work you can handle yourself and where you’ll need help:

• Handle it yourself when you know your products and can review suggested keywords or copy changes.
• Hire a specialist when the work involves persistent indexing problems, theme code, or a site migration. The Shopify Partner Directory has professionals who offer SEO and development services.

Determining search rankings

Search engines apply AI to interpret searches and identify relevant pages. Google’s ranking systems, for example, assess how closely a page matches a query. They also consider the content’s expertise and how easily visitors can navigate the page.

For your own SEO work, ask AI to compare a page with the question behind its target keyword. For example, someone searching “how to clean a French press” needs clear cleaning instructions. AI can flag unanswered questions in your draft, which you can address with your product knowledge.

Google applies the same SEO fundamentals to AI Overviews and AI Mode. Accurate, useful content and pages that Google can crawl and index are part of qualifying for both traditional results and AI answers.

Identifying website optimization opportunities

For site-performance issues, check your store’s own data first. Shopify’s Web performance reports measure loading speed, responsiveness, and visual stability based on actual visitor experiences.

Find them under Analytics > Reports in your Shopify admin, then compare mobile and desktop performance or investigate individual URLs.

Give AI the relevant report data or findings from a site audit, then ask it to organize improvements into two groups:

• Technical SEO. Group crawl errors by issue and identify affected pages. For a page excluded from search, AI can help explain a reported noindex tag and suggest checks before you change it.
• On-page SEO. Review page titles, headings, and copy against the target search query. For a product page, ask AI to flag missing details that shoppers need, such as dimensions.

For visibility in AI answers, write passages that make sense when quoted separately. Name the product or subject clearly and place the answer near the relevant heading. Bing’s webmaster guidelines recommend clear, focused content that readers can understand on its own.

Check each recommendation against the original report. Test changes to theme code before publishing, then monitor the affected pages.

Researching keywords

AI can group a keyword list based on what shoppers want to find. Give it keywords from your research platform or search-performance reports, plus a list of your existing pages. Ask it to suggest a destination for each keyword group.

Separate the work by page type:

Include questions shoppers could ask an AI assistant. Ask AI to identify which questions your existing pages answer and where additional content would help.

Keep search-volume and difficulty figures from your research source. Review current search results to check whether the proposed page type matches the query, and confirm that each keyword group fits what your store sells.

Summarizing research

Web-enabled AI assistants can access current information online. For example, Gemini’s Deep Research searches the web to gather sources for a research report. AI assistants can also summarize documents you provide.

Give the assistant a specific research question and request original sources. For a buying guide, you could ask it to summarize a manufacturer’s care instructions and identify points that need further explanation.

Open every source before adding a claim to your content. Check that it says what the summary claims, and confirm the publication date. For survey findings, check who participated and which market the results describe. AI-generated summaries can contain errors even when they link to real sources.

Helping write content

AI can draft copy from your product information or suggest edits to an existing page. In Shopify’s Q4 2025 Survey of Store Owners,* content generation was the most common AI use case, at 69%.

AI-assisted writing is widespread across the web. Pew Research Center analyzed nearly half a million English-language webpages. In its July 2026 snapshot, more than a third of pages published after ChatGPT’s release showed signs of AI authorship, based on an AI detection model.

For SEO content, follow the search engines’ quality requirements:

• Google. Its generative AI guidance emphasizes accuracy, relevance, and value for readers. Generating large numbers of pages that add little value can violate its scaled content abuse policy.
• Bing. Its webmaster guidelines warn that automatically generated content produced at scale with inadequate editorial review risks exclusion from its index.

Give AI verified product facts and a brief. When using AI to write blog posts, check the draft’s claims and add information from your own experience. A buying guide, for example, can include observations from testing the products you sell.

In Shopify, Sidekick works with your store’s data and can help create content. You can also generate product descriptions in the product editor. Provide specific features and instructions, then check the draft against the actual product before saving.

How to get your site cited by AI search

Answer shoppers’ questions on pages search engines can crawl. Semrush found that commercial queries’ share of keywords triggering AI Overviews rose from 8.15% in October 2024 to 18.57% in October 2025.

Follow Shopify’s AI optimization guidance, with attention to four areas:

• Give direct answers. Place concise answers beneath descriptive headings. For example, state whether a product is dishwasher-safe beside its care instructions.
• Check structured data. Keep product markup consistent with visible prices and availability. Review your product data for AI channels for missing specifications, then validate the markup after theme changes.
• Document expertise. Add author biographies and explain firsthand product testing. Demonstrate experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (EEAT) through verifiable claims and clear sourcing.
• Earn independent brand mentions. Share original product research with relevant publications and encourage honest customer reviews. Give other sources something credible to reference.

The Shopify Knowledge Base app lets you customize store FAQs available to AI shopping agents and review their inquiries. Agentic storefronts make eligible stores’ products available for discovery and purchase through participating AI channels.

Measure citations, visits, and sales

Pew Research Center’s browsing-data study of 900 US adults found traditional-result clicks on 8% of Google visits with AI summaries, versus 15% of visits with no summary. Links within summaries received clicks on just 1% of visits, even though 88% of summaries cited three or more sources.

Track how often your pages are cited for a consistent set of shopper questions. Record the engine and date, then monitor AI referral visits and resulting sales in your analytics. Bing Webmaster Tools’ AI Performance report also discloses citations across participating Microsoft AI experiences.

Shopify’s Q1 2026 AI search insights found that AI-referred shoppers had higher conversion rates and average order values than organic-search visitors. Compare these metrics for your own store’s referral traffic.

Compare referral sources individually. In September 2026, ChatGPT generated 80.48% of worldwide AI chatbot referrals tracked by Statcounter, ahead of Google Gemini at 10.91%. Your store’s traffic mix can differ.

For more detailed recommendations, read Shopify’s generative engine optimization guide.

How to choose an AI SEO tool

Shopify’s built-in AI assistant, Sidekick, can help you create product content and analyze store data. Sidekick works within your Shopify admin and presents proposed changes for review before applying them.

Choose the SEO task you need to complete. Then compare AI SEO tools by their capabilities and data sources:

In Shopify’s Q4 2025 Survey of Store Owners,* ChatGPT led AI tool usage at 67%, approximately four times the usage rate of other tools. Test a tool on one real SEO task before choosing a subscription. For example, ask it to review an existing product page, then assess whether its suggestions are accurate and specific enough to implement.

Compare these practical requirements:

• Data access. Check whether the tool can analyze your store’s reports or accept exports.
• Editorial control. Look for clear instructions, editable drafts, and approval before publication.
• Measurement. Confirm that reports distinguish search rankings from AI citations and referral traffic.
• Total cost. Compare usage limits and seat charges against your expected workload.
• Privacy. Review how the provider stores submitted data and whether it trains models on that information.

*Based on a 2025 survey of 500 Shopify merchants conducted in English across Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United States. Respondents were established merchants with two or more years on the platform. Results reflect the experiences of this specific sample and may not be representative of all merchants.