A product feed is a structured file containing key details like product titles, descriptions, prices, and availability. Beyond powering Google Shopping campaigns, feeds now fuel AI-powered search and discovery. Optimized feeds ensure your products are understood, ranked, and surfaced by both search engines and AI-driven experiences.
Product feeds have long been the engine behind Google Shopping and various paid media campaigns but they’re now playing a much bigger role in how customers discover, evaluate, and interact with products. Structured product data isn't just read by Google Merchant Center anymore. It's now being surfaced in AI Overviews, interpreted by large language models (LLMs), and embedded into AI-powered product discovery experiences consumers don't yet realize they're using.
What Is a Product Feed Today?
A product feed is a structured data file, usually in XML, CSV, or JSON format, that contains critical product information like title, description, price, availability, brand, GTIN, and more. Traditionally, this feed powers your Google Shopping campaigns through Google Merchant Center (GMC). But that's just the beginning.
Feeds optimized solely for GMC eligibility or PLA formatting are no longer enough. Today’s product feed is a signal-rich data source. When enhanced with attributes like schema markup for ecommerce, rich contextual descriptions, and dynamic availability, it becomes fuel for AI-powered shopping tools, from Google’s AI Overviews to LLM-based chat interfaces and voice assistants.
AI Overviews Now Surface Structured Product Data
Google’s AI Overviews are reshaping how searchers consume commercial information. Instead of listing blue links or ad carousels, Google now uses generative AI to summarize the best answers, including product details. If your product attributes aren’t aligned with what the AI needs to summarize, your visibility could shrink even if your bids or SEO are solid.
What’s critical to understand is that AI Overviews pull in more than surface-level data. They evaluate context, completeness, and relevance. That means product feeds missing essential attributes like size, material, or unique differentiators may never make it into the generative summary, even if they’re technically eligible in Google Merchant Center. By enriching feeds with robust descriptions, schema markup, and real-time inventory, brands increase their chances of being highlighted as the “best answer” in AI-generated shopping snapshots.
What Attributes Matter Most for Future Discovery?
You know the basics such as title, description, price, and availability. What is emerging in the AI era is the importance of keyword-rich but human-readable descriptions, schema-enhanced markup, and API-powered real-time availability.
Here’s what to prioritize for tomorrow’s discovery engines:
- Unique, benefit-driven product descriptions tied to semantic keywords
- Structured product data using schema.org markup
- Attributes like color, material, style, fit, especially for categories like apparel, home goods, and electronics
- Real-time availability and dynamic pricing via data feeds
- Well-structured variant data (size, model, etc.) to help AI differentiate SKUs
Think of each attribute as a data signal AI uses to match intent. The better structured and semantically relevant your feed, the smarter you’ll look at a machine.
Neglecting Structure Means Vanishing Visibility
If your product data is inconsistent, shallow, or mismatched across platforms, you're sending conflicting signals to AI systems. That’s not just a technical issue, it’s now a visibility issue.
Search engines and LLMs reward clarity. Fuzzy, duplicative, or contradictory product data across your feed, website, and schema can dramatically reduce your product’s likelihood of appearing in AI-powered results.
We're seeing this play out more and more. Sites without a coherent structured data strategy are watching AI Overviews feature competitors instead, often with less ad spend but better feeds.
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Positioning for LLMs and the Future of Discovery
Large language models aren’t "shopping tools" yet. But they’re becoming trusted advisors. “What’s the best laptop under $1,000?” or “Where can I buy a breathable summer blazer?” are queries being answered by AI agents, not just page one search results.
Well-optimized product feeds will become even more important as those answers increasingly rely on ecommerce structured data behind the scenes. LLMs can’t recommend what they can’t understand.
Too many brands are waiting for the shift, instead of preparing for it. That’s where Marcel Digital leads the conversation.
Marcel Digital’s Approach
Most agencies treat feed optimization as a technical task. At Marcel Digital, we view it as part of a broader digital strategy that connects SEO, performance marketing, and analytics to overall performance goals.
Our approach includes:
- Auditing and rewriting titles and descriptions for both Google Shopping performance and semantic AI interpretation
- Deploying ecommerce schema markup across site and feed endpoints
- Connecting inventory APIs to reflect real-time availability in Google Merchant Center and chat-based discovery tools
- Mapping feed attributes to your analytics strategy to measure down-funnel value across product types
- Providing insights on how emerging AI discovery technologies use (or ignore) product feed data
AI Cares About Understanding More Than Compliance
Many competitors get this wrong. They focus heavily on feed rules and Google Merchant Center policy updates. Meeting those requirements is necessary, but compliance alone will not secure AI-driven placements. What matters most is meaning, relevance, and structure.
AI-powered product discovery systems evaluate how clearly your product communicates its benefits, how well its data aligns with real user questions, and how accurately it fits into category and attribute schemas. Compliance is only the foundation. The brands that go further with rich, well-structured product data are the ones AI will consistently surface in discovery experiences.
Let’s Optimize for the Future with Marcel Digital
Product feed optimization today is about aligning three things: machine readability, consumer intent, and platform requirements. With AI Overviews and LLMs adding layers of interpretation on top of your feed, the stakes have never been higher.
If your brand is frustrated by declining performance or unsure how AI Overviews factor in, it’s time for a deeper approach. Marcel Digital helps ecommerce brands create, structure, and analyze product feeds built not just for Google Merchant Center, but for AI-powered shopping experiences evolving in real time.
Let’s make your products discoverable by humans and machines.
Contact Marcel Digital today to start building a future-ready product feed strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a product feed and why is it important for AI-powered search?
How do AI Overviews use product feed data?
Google’s AI Overviews analyze product feeds to generate summarized answers for commercial queries. Instead of only showing links or ads, they highlight product details directly in search results. Feeds with richer attributes and contextual data are more likely to be included in these AI-generated summaries.
What attributes should I focus on when optimizing my product feed for AI and Google Merchant Center?
Beyond the basics (title, description, price, availability), prioritize attributes like material, color, size, style, and schema markup. Keyword-rich, benefit-driven descriptions and real-time availability also help your products stand out in AI-driven discovery tools.
How can neglecting structured data impact my product visibility?
Inconsistent or incomplete structured data sends mixed signals to AI systems, lowering the chances of being included in AI Overviews or LLM responses. Even with strong ad spend or SEO, poor feed structure can cause competitors with better-optimized data to gain visibility instead.
Will optimizing my product feed help with future AI and LLM advancements?
Yes. As large language models and AI shopping assistants increasingly rely on structured data, optimized feeds will become essential. Future-ready feeds improve your visibility today in Google Merchant Center and position your products for the next wave of AI-driven discovery.
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About the author
Joe Stoffel
Joe knows what it takes to drive SEO results. He is an experienced SEO specialist who currently leads the SEO department and strategy at Marcel Digital.