Agent Beat for October 29, 2026

Welcome to Agent Beat, the daily briefing on how AI finds brands and how agents choose what to buy. It's Thursday, October 29, 2026.

Google is expanding ads in AI Mode to 10 more countries, including Canada and India. The units are sponsored results shown alongside AI Mode answers.

ChatGPT Shopping draws on OpenAI's Labrador product-feed index in the United States but in Europe it still returns Google Shopping results through a third-party API, according to Peec AI, which used an OpenAI debug API. In its US tests, a store without verified-seller status placed none of its products in the carousel, though it appeared in 25 of 32 candidate products. ChatGPT cuts each product description to 50 tokens, about 40 English words, and scores only that opening text. Peec AI says US merchants must either send a product feed to OpenAI or sell through Shopify, while in Europe they must be listed in Google Shopping. The firm also says ChatGPT Shopping requires verified-seller status in the US but performs no seller checks in Europe. Peec AI advises sending product feeds to OpenAI, putting the important details first and keeping Google Shopping in order until Labrador reaches Europe.

Google opened a preview of a Connected Apps Platform that lets developers bring app capabilities directly into Gemini and Google Search. Google described it as a unified way for more app developers to reach its AI experiences.

Pages that AI assistants cited answered a question in their opening lines more often than other pages, according to an analysis reported by Search Engine Journal. The gap narrowed when cited pages were compared with pages the tools retrieved but did not cite.

YouTube, Facebook and Reddit are the most-cited sources in French AI Overviews, according to an analysis by Converteo and Qwairy of the summaries Google shows for consumer queries in France. The sources cited and the competing brands named vary widely from one query to the next.

Google's AI Mode ad expansion also covers Australia, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Singapore, with Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom due in the fourth quarter. Ads will also run against follow-up questions in the United States.

LINE Yahoo started an AI Best Proposal feature in Yahoo Shopping that ranks products in categories for price, delivery, rating and an overall best pick. Its AI comparison now counts coupons, points and shipping when it ranks on price.

Siècle Digital reports that an Ipsos survey for Eskimoz found 52% of French people use at least one AI tool every week, and that AI is also taking a growing share of purchases as Christmas approaches.

Shoppers ask AI assistants which brand to buy, and the answers draw mainly on customer reviews. How a language model summarises those reviews, and how much weight it gives them, decides whether a brand gets named.

Journal du Net reports that a growing share of purchases is settled inside a conversation with an AI assistant. Brands that get picked attribute the sale to another channel, and the brands that lose see no trace of the customer.

Restaurants can now manage third-party ordering services one at a time inside Google Business Profiles, turning them off entirely or in part.

Thanks for listening. For the full written brief, go to agent-beat.com.