Imagine a shopper asking an AI assistant which product to buy, and your brand is either mentioned first… or not at all. This is the AI shelf, and in the new retail reality, it’s where many buying decisions begin and end.
Why the AI Shelf Matters More Than Ever
AI-powered answers are no longer fringe, they’re mainstream. With the rise of large language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, millions of shoppers now rely on AI-generated answers to inform their buying decisions. They skip past traditional search results and trust the first clear, confident answer delivered by AI.
This shift creates a new kind of shelf. Unlike the physical shelf at retail or the product grid on a PDP, the AI shelf is:
- Invisible and dynamic: it changes based on how questions are phrased.
- Emotionally weighted: tone and sentiment in AI responses carry persuasive power.
- Platform-driven: the algorithms decide which brands appear and how they are framed.
When your brand doesn’t make it onto the AI shelf, you’re invisible at the moment of decision-making.
The Challenge for Shopper Insights and Brand Teams
Historically, marketers have optimized for discoverability through SEO, media placement, and in-store visibility. But the AI shelf demands a different kind of visibility, one that’s earned, not bought.
Until recently, visibility on AI platforms was essentially unmeasurable. Brands had no way to:
- Know whether they were being mentioned in AI-generated responses.
- Understand how their competitors were represented.
- Track how sentiment or language impacted brand perception.
This blind spot has posed a major challenge for insights and shopper marketing teams trying to inform omnichannel strategies.
How DigiTraffic Helps You Win the AI Shelf
Behaviorally’s DigiTraffic helps you decode the invisible dynamics of AI-generated influence by delivering access to three core capabilities:
1. Brand Sentiment Scoring in AI Contexts
DigiTraffic’s AI Brand Sentiment Report provides a qualitative and quantitative view of how your brand is portrayed in generative AI responses:
- Positive vs. negative sentiment trends over time.
- Prompt level analysis across platforms.
- Comparative sentiment vs. direct and indirect competitors.
This enables you to align brand storytelling and content strategies with the tone and positioning that resonates most, and course-correct when sentiment drifts off-brand.
2. Visibility Benchmarking and Competitive Analysis
DigiTraffic reveals how frequently – and in what context – your brand is mentioned across leading AI platforms. The analysis breaks this down by:
- Prompt category (e.g., “best shampoo for dry scalp”)
- Product benefits or attributes (e.g., “natural,” “long-lasting,” “value for money”)
- Competitive positioning (who’s being mentioned alongside your brand)
This gives you the ability to quantify share of voice in AI, and isolate the messaging or product features that drive inclusion.
3. Source Attribution
AI responses are shaped by the content they’re trained on, blogs, reviews, articles, and public brand pages. DigiTraffic’s source report analysis shows:
- Which URLs and domains are being cited by AI as justification for mentioning (or omitting) your brand.
- What types of content influence AI’s choices (e.g., third-party reviews vs. branded content).
- How to strategically invest in content development and PR to improve brand presence in influential sources.
The Opportunity Ahead
As AI becomes the new frontline of consumer decision-making, shopper marketers must ensure their brands are not only seen but recommended. That means understanding what gets your brand surfaced in AI, how it’s being talked about, and how to strategically influence that presence.
DigiTraffic empowers you to do exactly that — and helps future-proof your shopper marketing strategy for a world where visibility is algorithmic, AI-mediated, and happening before you ever see the click.
Contact us today to learn how DigiTraffic gives you visibility on the AI shelf!
THE AUTHOR
Nisha Yadav is the Senior Vice President, Omni Shopper Lead at Behaviorally. She has over 15 years of experience as a marketing strategist offering insight-led, brand, product, and customer strategy to storied brands. Before joining Behaviorally, Nisha led Global Brand Research at MetLife and her career includes progressive roles leading marketing insights and strategy teams on the agency and client-side alike.
