Why copied supplier product texts keep your store out of AI answers

If you have ever wondered why ChatGPT or Gemini never seems to mention your store when someone asks where to buy something you sell, the answer is often sitting right on your product pages. Most webshops copy the product texts supplied by their manufacturer or distributor and paste them in unchanged. It feels like a time-saver. But for AI systems that decide which stores to name, it is one of the quieter ways to become invisible.

How AI tools decide which stores to name

ChatGPT and Gemini do not search the web in real time the way a search engine does. They have learned from enormous amounts of text, and they draw on that learning when someone asks a buying question. They tend to name stores that appeared clearly and consistently in their training data, in a way that showed genuine knowledge about a product or a topic. A store that only ever repeated the same text as a hundred other stores gives these systems very little reason to single it out. According to the latest Krillo Index measurement, 57% of the 3641 webshops we measured in the Netherlands, Belgium and the United States were not named by ChatGPT or Gemini in a single buying question across 65 categories. That is a large share of stores that are effectively absent from AI recommendations.

Why copied texts make the problem worse

When you copy a supplier text word for word, your page and dozens of other pages all say exactly the same thing. There is no signal that separates your store from the rest. AI systems are looking for sources that add something, stores that explain products in their own words, answer real customer questions, or show that they understand what they are selling. A block of identical manufacturer text does none of that. It tells the AI nothing distinctive about you. The Krillo Index shows that ChatGPT named at least one store in 99% of 5938 buying questions, with an average of 5.9 stores per answer, and Gemini named at least one store in 100% of 5956 buying questions, with an average of 7.1 stores per answer. So the AI is naming stores, quite consistently. The question is whether yours is among them, or whether the copied text means there is simply nothing to pull you out of the background.

What actually helps

The stores that tend to appear in AI answers have pages that say something real. They describe products in language that reflects how customers actually talk about them. They answer the questions people ask before they buy. They explain what makes one option different from another. None of this requires expensive tools or specialist knowledge. It requires rewriting, which takes time but is entirely within reach.

Steps you can take this week

Start by picking five to ten of your most important products, the ones where you most want to appear in buying recommendations. For each one, delete the supplier text entirely and write a description from scratch. Write the way you would explain the product to a customer standing in front of you. What does it do well? Who is it for? What should they know before they buy it? What do people often get wrong about it?

After that, think about what questions customers ask you most often, by email, phone or chat. Take those questions and answer them directly on the product page or in a short FAQ block below the description. These are exactly the kinds of things AI systems pick up on, because they match what people actually type when they ask a buying question.

If your store covers many categories, you do not need to rewrite everything at once. Focus on one category this week, write honest and specific descriptions for the products in it, and move to the next category the week after. Small consistent steps are more useful than waiting until you have time to do everything at once.

It also helps to be specific about what your store offers beyond the products themselves. Do you give clear advice on which model suits which situation? Do you stock items that are harder to find elsewhere? Do you have a return policy that is simpler than average? Say so, plainly and without exaggeration, on your category pages and your homepage. This kind of context helps AI systems understand what kind of store you are.

A useful starting point

At krilloai.com you can run a free check to see whether ChatGPT and Gemini are currently naming your store in buying questions relevant to what you sell. It takes no time to set up and gives you a clear picture of where you stand before you decide what to work on first.