Leveling up GenAI optimization strategy: Is your ecommerce brand ready for AI search?

According to a recent report from Capital One, 72% of shoppers, who already use AI, leverage it as their primary tool to research products and brands, proof that AI search is reshaping how customers discover and buy from ecommerce brands. Instead of typing keywords into Google and scrolling through dozens of links, shoppers now ask conversational AI platforms which products best fit their needs, which brands they can trust and where the best value lies.

For marketing leadership, this creates two urgent challenges:

• Your brand narrative is being defined by AI systems you don’t control.
• AI-driven discovery and checkout are breaking traditional attribution while CMOs are losing clarity on what drives ROI.

In this article, we’ll break down the AI maturity model for ecommerce brands to identify the primary challenges of each stage and provide a prioritized roadmap to help you protect your brand narrative, capture hidden AI-driven demand and turn conversational search into a durable, competitive advantage.

Why the shift to AI search is so disruptive to ecommerce

While traditional search rewards visibility, AI search rewards data precision and consistency, fundamentally altering three core pillars of the ecommerce model:

1. AI platforms control which brands enter the conversation: Features like ChatGPT Shopping and Perplexity Shopping generate curated product lists — bypassing traditional SEO, paid search and retail media placements.
2. AI-assisted checkout removes customer friction: One-click shopping within ChatGPT and Perplexity allows users to purchase without ever visiting your site. That means less brand exposure, fewer engagement signals and significant blind spots in analytics.
3. AI-generated summaries define how your products are described: Instead of reading your product details page (PDP), users read AI-written summaries generated from content across the web, which may be incomplete, outdated or misinformed.

In an industry where margins are won or lost in milliseconds of consideration, the shift to AI search represents the most significant disruption to the merchant-to-consumer relationship since the invention of the digital storefront.

Understanding the levels of the AI maturity model

Success in the age of AI search isn't an overnight switch; it’s a progression of technical readiness and strategic integration. Most brands find themselves in one of the following three stages.

Level one: Recognizing AI search is already defining your brand story

If you’re a brand at this level, you are starting to realize that AI platforms may impact your business. You’re strengthening your owned and earned channels and starting to explore how AI search influences consumer behavior.

What defines this level

Your brand may be visible in AI searches, but the responses are generated with incorrect or outdated information.

Right now, you’re likely:

• Becoming aware of new AI-driven discovery paths (e.g., ChatGPT Shopping, Perplexity Shopping)
• Recognizing how AI assistants recommend, compare and summarize products
• Unsure of how to improve it or who owns this channel

Primary challenges

LLMs could already be hallucinating your brand values, current pricing or inventory.

Challenges ahead include:

• Determining what aspects of AI search matter for their category
• Understanding how product data feeds into AI models
• Setting up and monitoring AI referral traffic analysis

Primary opportunities

If a customer asks ChatGPT, "Why should I buy this product from [your brand] instead of Amazon?" is the answer actually coming from you or an outdated Reddit thread?

Take big strides forward now by:

• Reviewing current AI search visibility and sentiment
• Cleaning and standardizing product data and brand messaging
• Building internal alignment around AI search as a growth channel

If this sounds like your current stage, don’t panic. Your first step is realistic acknowledgement and understanding that this level is about gaining clarity — not optimization.

Level two: Testing, auditing and early optimization

If you’re a brand at this level, you’re treating AI search as a real acquisition channel, moving from awareness to action. You’re exploring how agentic commerce is affecting your brand reputation and conversion funnels.

What defines this level

You’re transitioning from being seen to being functional by ensuring your product feeds are real-time and compatible with AI shoppers, like ChatGPT’s Search or Perplexity.

You accomplish this by:

• Conducting prompt tests to see if and how your brand appears
• Running AI response audits and benchmarking yourself against competitors
• Evaluating how agentic commerce may influence your funnel (e.g., one-click checkout, affiliate-driven recommendations)

Primary challenges

It can be difficult to diagnose the gaps in how buyer journeys have changed and how you fit into them. You’re getting AI-assisted sales, but your traditional tracking pixels can’t see them. So, you are winning, but it’s challenging to prove why to your board.

Key contributors to this scenario are:

• Major accuracy gaps in AI-generated responses
• Misinformation from outdated reviews, negative reviews or problematic product data
• Lack of clear internal ownership of how your products are summarized or compared

Primary opportunities

You’ve optimized for the human click, but if an AI agent can't verify your stock levels in real-time, it will recommend your competitor who can.

Here’s what you can do:

• Refresh and strengthen product content to improve AI summarization
• Optimize inventory, pricing and feed accuracy for AI-driven shopping workflows
• Address sentiment issues and misinformation surfaced in AI tools
• Prepare ecommerce flows for AI-bot accessibility to ensure seamless purchases

You’re trending in the right direction. Focus on experimentation, diagnosis and addressing gaps at this level — not full integration.

Level three: Proactive strategy and channel control

If you’re a level-three brand, you recognize AI search as a core acquisition and brand channel, connecting the dots between customer experience, GEO, reputation management and digital marketing strategies.

What defines this level

You’re focused on leveraging generative engine optimization and using AI to improve where and how you show up in AI search.

You’re achieving this by:

• Monitoring brand presence and share of voice across AI assistants
• Optimizing product data, structured feeds and content signals to influence AI summaries and recommendations
• Integrating brand and GEO insights into content planning, merchandising and broader marketing strategies

Primary challenges

At this level, it’s still challenging to keep pace with the evolving landscape, but in a world where AI synthesizes information, brand equity is your best defense.

Be vigilant in:

• Staying ahead of fast-evolving AI model behavior
• Maintaining consistency across all AI-informed touchpoints
• Adapting strategy as new AI shopping features and policies emerge

Primary opportunities

Level-three brands use AI to reinforce their unique value proposition at every conversational touchpoint, owning the category narrative before competitors even begin optimizing for AI search.

You show up as number one on a “top five best”-style list because your website and brand mentions are perfectly aligned for the LLM's logic.

You hold that top position by:

• Influencing category narratives before competitors do
• Strengthening brand authority signals that AI systems rely on
• Developing AI-informed content and product strategies that drive long-term advantage

Achieving at this level requires integration, leadership and sustained competitive advantage, but most importantly, never calling your work “done.”

What CMOs should do now

AI search has created a new competitive arena, one where ecommerce brands are uniquely exposed to shifts in consumer behavior, recommendation engines and AI-driven checkout. Every organization now sits somewhere on the maturity curve:

Regardless of your starting point, AI search is already influencing customer decisions in ways that traditional analytics can’t detect.

CMOs who move early gain the ability to:

• Protect brand accuracy across AI summaries and recommendations
• Capture AI-assisted demand that won’t appear in search reports
• Stay relevant as conversational shopping accelerates
• Build a durable, competitive advantage before the category matures

If you want to understand where your brand sits on the maturity curve and how to stay ahead as AI-driven shopping accelerates, TELUS Digital’s GEO audit provides the clarity you need in just six to eight weeks.

You’ll gain a prioritized roadmap that aligns all channels around the realities of AI search, helping your team act confidently in a channel that’s evolving faster than traditional search ever did.