How do you know your agency is ignoring AI search?
The clearest sign is simple. They only talk about Google. Not ChatGPT. Not Perplexity. Not Google's own AI Overviews.
Product discovery is moving to AI assistants, and a lot of agencies are pretending it isn't. Here are 7 signs yours is one of them.
1. They can't show you your product schema
Ask your agency to pull up the structured data on your best-selling product. If they fumble or send you to your theme developer, they aren't thinking about how AI reads your catalog. Schema is how assistants understand what you sell.
2. They only report Google rankings
Monthly reports full of keyword positions and nothing else are a 2019 scorecard. AI Overviews now sit above those rankings on many queries. If the report never mentions AI visibility, they aren't measuring it.
3. They've never said the words ChatGPT or Perplexity
OpenAI has confirmed shopping features inside ChatGPT, and Perplexity runs its own product answers. If your agency has never once discussed how you show up there, they're skipping the fastest-growing discovery surface.
4. Your product feed hasn't been touched in months
The product feed is the raw material AI uses to recommend you. Missing attributes, thin descriptions, and no GTINs make you invisible. If nobody has audited your feed this year, that's a red flag.
5. There's no FAQ or question-based content
AI assistants cite content that directly answers questions. If your agency writes keyword-stuffed blog posts with no FAQ sections and no question-style headings, they're optimizing for a search box, not an answer engine.
6. They dismiss AI search as a fad
"Let's wait and see" is the exact line I heard about Facebook ads in 2014. I waited two years and my competitors got a head start I never closed. Dismissal is a choice, and it's usually the wrong one.
7. They can't tell you whether AI recommends you
Ask a direct question. "If a shopper asks ChatGPT for the best store in our category, do we come up?" A modern agency can test that and give you an answer. If yours just shrugs, they're not tracking the thing that matters most.
How We Chose These Signs
These come from audits of Shopify stores whose agencies reported strong SEO while AI assistants never surfaced their products. Each sign is a gap we've repeatedly found between what agencies measure and where buyers now discover products.
FAQ
Q: Should I fire my agency if I see these signs?
Not necessarily. Raise them directly first. A good agency will take the gaps seriously and build a plan. A defensive one tells you it doesn't matter.
Q: Can a traditional SEO agency learn AEO?
Yes, if they want to. Structured data and question-based content are extensions of good SEO, not a different universe. The willingness matters more than the current skill.
Q: How fast does AI search visibility change?
Feed and schema fixes can show up in AI answers within weeks, not the months that organic rankings take. It's often faster than traditional SEO.
Q: What's the single most important fix?
Clean, complete product structured data. It's the foundation everything else builds on.
See where you actually stand
If you're not sure whether AI recommends your store, find out before your competitors do. Check your agentic commerce readiness here.
Sources: OpenAI announcements, Google on AI in Search, Schema.org Product spec.
By Steve Merrill, WRKNG Digital — August 14, 2026
