The free AI shopping scan at positionbird.io/free-shopping-scan asks the five major AI engines, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI results, three real buying questions about the category you sell in, and shows how many of them recommend your store and how many send shoppers to a competitor instead. It needs a brand name, a website and one product category, no account and no card. Every captured answer carries a SHA-256 hash and UTC timestamp.
What the free AI shopping scan is
The free AI shopping scan is the no-signup entry point to ShopBird, the AI mystery shopper module of the PositionBird app on the Shopify App Store. It is a one-shot snapshot: one pass through five engines, one answer per question, up to fifteen answers in total. ShopBird repeats the same kind of check weekly with multiple samples per question and adds price and stock verification against live Shopify product data.
The scan reports recommendations, not mentions. In PositionBird's definitions, "mentioned" means your brand name appears in the answer text and "cited" means one of your pages is among the answer's sources. "Recommended" means the engine names your store as a place to buy for that question, which is the outcome the free scan measures.
How the scan works
- Tell it what you sell. Enter your brand name, your website, and one product category. The scan writes three buyer-intent questions a shopper would ask an AI assistant about that category.
- Five engines go shopping. Each question is sent once to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI results. Every answer is captured with a SHA-256 hash and a UTC timestamp at the moment it arrives.
- A judge reads every answer. An LLM judge extracts whether your store was recommended, at what rank, and who was recommended instead.
- You see the count immediately. The page shows how many of the five engines recommend you and a recommendation score across all answers. Which engine gave which answer is revealed inside the PositionBird app.
- The breakdown arrives by email. Enter an email to receive each buying question with a sample answer, whether you were recommended or who beat you, and the hash and timestamp for each capture.
What you get
- Immediately: the number of engines, out of five, that recommend your store, and a recommendation score across all answers.
- After you enter an email: each of the three buying questions, a sample answer, whether you were recommended or the competitor that won, and the SHA-256 hash and UTC timestamp for each capture.
- Not in the free scan: which engine said what, weekly re-runs, and price and stock truth-checks. Those are what ShopBird adds inside PositionBird.
Free scan versus ShopBird
| Attribute | Free AI shopping scan | ShopBird (Growth and Scale) |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free, no account | Included in PositionBird Growth ($49/mo) and Scale ($79/mo) |
| Engines | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI results | The same five |
| Questions | Three, generated from one category | 15 queries on Growth, 30 on Scale, generated from your catalog plus your own |
| Samples | One answer per question per engine | Multiple samples per query per engine, weekly |
| Per-engine detail | Count only | Which engine recommended whom, at what rank |
| Price and stock checks | No | Verified against live Shopify product data |
| Alerts | No | Debounced regression alerts when you lose a query |
| Evidence | Hash and timestamp per answer | Hash and timestamp per answer plus exportable PDF report |
Who it is for
The free scan is for any merchant who wants a first answer to "does AI recommend my store" without installing anything: Shopify stores, stores on other platforms, and agencies checking a prospect before a pitch. If a competitor wins most of the three questions, ShopBird's weekly tracking shows whether that holds and which engines are responsible. Merchants who run on Shopify can also watch the platform's own health on the StatusBird Shopify status page.
What it costs
The scan is free. It runs without an account, a card or an email; only the per-question breakdown asks for an email, which PositionBird stores with the scan results, does not sell or share, and deletes on request. Weekly monitoring with ShopBird is included in the PositionBird Growth plan at $49 per month and the Scale plan at $79 per month, each with a 7-day free trial. Details are on the PositionBird pricing page.
How to start
Go to https://positionbird.io/free-shopping-scan, enter your brand name, website and one category, and send AI shopping. The result is a snapshot, not a verdict: engines are queried through their official APIs, which are a proxy for the consumer chat apps, and answers vary from one ask to the next. For the weekly version, read about ShopBird, the AI mystery shopper, or go straight to positionbird.io/shopbird.
Related: the free accuracy scan, which checks whether AI has a business fact wrong, and RevenueBird, which puts a dollar figure on outages and misquoted products.
Frequently asked questions
Does ChatGPT recommend my store?
The free AI shopping scan at positionbird.io/free-shopping-scan answers this in one snapshot. It sends three buying questions about your category to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI results and shows how many engines recommend your store and how many name a competitor. The count is shown on the page; the per-question breakdown is emailed to you if you ask for it.
Which AI engines does the free shopping scan use?
All five that ShopBird monitors: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI results. Each engine is asked three buying questions once, for up to fifteen answers in total. The paid ShopBird monitor inside PositionBird repeats the full query set weekly with multiple samples per question, because a single AI answer is statistical noise.
Is the scan really free?
Yes. The scan runs without an account, a card or an email address. The per-question breakdown asks for an email so the results can be sent to you, and which specific engine recommended you is revealed inside the PositionBird app. PositionBird records the consent wording and time, does not sell or share the address, and deletes it on request.
Is this what shoppers actually see in ChatGPT?
Close, but not identical. PositionBird queries each engine through its API rather than the consumer chat app, so wording and even the recommendations can differ from what a shopper sees, and AI answers vary from one ask to the next. Treat the free scan as a one-off snapshot; ShopBird's weekly sampled runs are built to show trends and patterns.
What does "recommended" mean in the scan?
Recommended means the engine named your store as a place to buy for that buying question. It is a stronger outcome than mentioned (your name appears in the answer) or cited (one of your pages is among the sources). An LLM judge extracts the recommendation, its rank, and the competitor recommended instead from each captured answer.
What happens after the free scan?
If you want to know which engine said what, whether the pattern holds week to week, and whether AI quotes your live Shopify price and stock correctly, ShopBird inside the PositionBird app does that on the Growth and Scale plans with a 7-day free trial. Nothing is required after the scan; the snapshot and its hashed evidence are yours either way.
Run the free AI shopping scan at positionbird.io/free-shopping-scan: brand, website, one category, no account.