What Shopping Research in ChatGPT Means For CPG Brand Product Visibility

Published November 2025 · 2 min read

By Novi

Analysis of the OpenAI's New Shopping research Experience

What we’ve all been anticipating, yesterday, OpenAI rolled out shopping research in ChatGPT built on the new GPT-5.1 model with real implications for brands and their visibility in AI Commerce.

Here’s the quick breakdown. Between GPT-4.1, GPT-5 Mini, and GPT-5.1, OpenAI changed:
- Cost (cheaper to run, so adoption goes up)
- Speed
- Reasoning depth
- Available tools and context windows

So what does that actually mean? The systems that decide how content gets read, ranked, and recommended have shifted. The changes are subtle, but they influence which brands show up and how AI understands product data.

Brands need to adapt as models adapt, constantly tweaking how they show up across their digital footprint lest they become invisible to their shoppers.

We see this today in beauty categories such as hair pomade and eyeliner.

In our testing, one of our core customers had:
- 0 appearances in GPT-4.1
- 0 appearances in GPT-5 Mini
- 8 appearances in GPT-5.1
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Nothing about the brand or its products changed. The model changed.

Novi tracks these model shifts and integrates them into our account so your products stay visible. Brands that adapt quickly stay ahead; brands that don’t risk falling out of view.