Ask ChatGPT “what is the best carry-on suitcase?” and it now shows a few suitcases. Under each one there is a button: “Shop at Nordstrom”, “Shop at Macy’s”, “Shop at Walmart”. You click, and you land on that store’s page for the suitcase.
This started on 10 October 2026. WISLR, a company that tracks AI search, tested it for a few days and wrote up what it found. This post explains their findings in simple words and what they mean if you sell a product.
What a “Shop at” button looks like
WISLR gave ChatGPT this question: which durable carry-on suitcase should I buy? ChatGPT recommended three suitcases. Here is where each button went:
| Suitcase ChatGPT recommended | Where the button went |
|---|---|
| Travelpro | Nordstrom |
| Briggs & Riley | Macy’s |
| Samsonite | Walmart |
None of the three buttons went to the suitcase maker’s own website. The shopper reads about Travelpro, but the sale goes to Nordstrom.
WISLR tried a second question: where to buy a cast iron skillet. ChatGPT linked Target, Wayfair and Walmart, and also linked three skillet makers directly. So the brand’s own store can get the button, but it did not happen often.
How common are the buttons?
Before 10 October, fewer than 1 in 1,000 ChatGPT answers WISLR tracked had one. On 10 October it was 11%. On 11 and 12 October it was 20%, and on 13 October 16%.
The buttons show up only when you ask a shopping question, like “what should I buy”. If you ask how a product works, there is no button. WISLR also checked Perplexity and Google AI Overviews over the same days. Neither added a button.
Where the buttons send people
WISLR looked at four product brands and counted where the buttons went.
- 56% went to big retailers such as Best Buy, Walmart, Target and Amazon.
- 39% went to competitor brands and specialist shops.
- 5% went to the brand’s own store.
Say you sell running shoes from your own website. In this test, for every 20 buttons ChatGPT showed under your shoes, about one went to your site. Eleven went to the big stores.
The one thing that changed the result
WISLR checked one more thing. For each answer, ChatGPT uses some web pages as its sources. WISLR asked: was the brand’s own product page one of them?
| Brand’s own product page was a source | Button went to the brand’s store | Button went to a big store | Button went to another store |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | 34% | 42% | 24% |
| No | 6% | 33% | 61% |
So when your own product page was one of the pages ChatGPT read, your store got the button about one time in three. When it was not, about one time in sixteen.
Careful here. This shows the two things happen together. It does not prove that adding your page as a source causes the button to come to you. WISLR also says the counts per brand are small, and calls the direction solid but the exact percentages provisional. One of the four brands got no buttons to its own store at all, and almost all of its buttons went to big retailers.
What WISLR could not tell us
- OpenAI has not said how it picks the store behind a button.
- WISLR found no announcement of a partnership with retailers or an affiliate program that week.
- The buttons began two days after OpenAI rolled out GPT-6 with Intelligent UI (7 October for paid users, 8 October for free users). The timing fits, but WISLR does not claim it proves the two are linked.
We cannot say more than that, because we have not run these tests ourselves.
What to do if you sell a product
- Open your listing on Best Buy, Walmart, Target or Amazon, if you are sold there. For many answers the button goes to a retailer no matter what you do. That page is where the shopper lands. Check that the price is right, the item is in stock, and the description and photos are as good as your own page.
- Make your own product page easy to use as a source. Put the price, what is in the box, size, materials, and shipping and return details in plain text on the page. Our guide on getting your product page found in ChatGPT and Google AI Mode has a checklist.
- Let ChatGPT’s search crawler in. If your robots.txt blocks it, your page cannot be a source. Use our 10-minute crawler test.
- Test it yourself. Ask ChatGPT five or six buying questions about your product type. Write down which products it names and where each button goes. Repeat next month.
- Do not read a fall in ChatGPT visits as “ChatGPT stopped recommending us”. WISLR asked ChatGPT the same 250 shopping questions before and after 10 October. The brand was named in 43% of answers after, against 40% before. If your name still shows up but visits fall, see our post on the October tracking bug.
For background on the update that brought these buttons, read ChatGPT Intelligent UI.
Source: WISLR’s article, published 14 October 2026 and updated 16 October 2026. All numbers above are WISLR’s.
