AI shopping agents can now see your compare-at prices. Spend five minutes on what they'll say

What changed on October 9

AI shopping agents that read your Shopify catalog used to see one price: what the product costs now. On October 9, 2026, Shopify started sharing your compare-at price too. That's the higher price you enter so a product shows as marked down, the one your theme usually displays with a strikethrough.

Shopify's changelog puts it simply: agents can now see when a product is marked down. The developer notes add that apps and agents get the compare-at as a field called list_price on each variant, and can use it to tell when a product is on sale and by how much.

For most stores this is switched on by default. Shopify says it turns the setting off for stores that use compare-at for a manufacturer's suggested price or another reference price, rather than a real former price.

That's mostly good news. A genuine sale can now show up in an agent's answer. But it raises the stakes on a field many stores treat casually. A strikethrough on your own product page is a design choice. The same number in an AI agent's answer reads like a fact. "This jacket is 40% off" sounds like a claim the agent checked, even though it's just repeating your field.

So here's a five-minute audit. It won't fix everything, but it'll tell you whether you have a problem.

Minute one: find the toggle

In your Shopify admin, find the catalog mapping settings that control what Shopify Catalog sends to AI agents. Shopify's changelog says the toggle sits in the Compare-at section.

Note whether it's on. If you've never opened this page, it's probably on. If you haven't looked at your agentic channel settings at all, we walked through that page in open Shopify's Agentic page before the next AI channel enrolls you.

Don't change anything yet. You want to know what's being shared before you decide.

Minutes two and three: find the products with a markdown showing

The agent only sees a markdown when the compare-at price is higher than the current price for that buyer. Products with no compare-at, or a compare-at equal to or below the price, don't show one.

Export your products, or filter them in the admin, and look for every variant where compare-at is above price. For each one, ask a single question: is this a real markdown right now?

You'll usually find three kinds.

Real, current sales. The compare-at is the price you actually charged until recently, and the sale is on. These are what the feature is for.

Leftovers. A summer promotion ended, the price went back up, but the compare-at was never cleared, or the price was lowered permanently and the old figure stayed as decoration. These now tell agents a product is on sale when it isn't, or hasn't been for months.

Reference prices. Some stores put a manufacturer's suggested price, or a bundle's separate-item total, in compare-at. That's exactly the case Shopify turns the setting off for. If you do this and the toggle is on anyway, an agent may present that number as a markdown.

Look at variants, not just products. Compare-at is set per variant, and Shopify's developer notes say agents also get a range showing the lowest and highest list price across a product's variants. A product where one size is genuinely on sale and the rest carry an old compare-at can come across as a broad markdown when it isn't.

Minute four: think about regions

The developer notes say the compare-at only reaches an agent when you show compare-at prices in the buyer's region. Stores that hide them from buyers in the European Economic Area don't send them to agents for those buyers.

If you sell internationally, check whether your store hides compare-at prices anywhere, and whether that's deliberate. Many markets have their own rules about advertising former prices. If you're not sure what applies to you, that's a question for whoever advises you on consumer law, not something to settle by toggle.

Minute five: decide

Now pick one of three settings for your store.

Leave it on if your compare-at prices are real and current, and someone owns clearing them when a sale ends.

Leave it on and clean up if you found leftovers. Clear the stale compare-at values first. That fixes your own storefront too, since shoppers see the same strikethrough.

Turn it off if you use compare-at as a reference price, or if you can't keep it accurate. Agents will go back to seeing only the current price, which is what they saw before October 9.

Whatever you choose, give the field an owner. The most common cause of stale markdowns is that nobody's job includes taking them down. Add "clear compare-at" to the checklist that ends every promotion, and repeat this audit once a quarter or after any big sale.

Why this is worth more than five minutes

This change is small, but it's a pattern you'll see again. Fields that used to be cosmetic, like a strikethrough price, a stock badge or a delivery estimate, are becoming data that AI agents read and repeat to shoppers you never meet. The agent doesn't know your compare-at is a leftover. It just knows the field is there.

Picture a small home-goods store, an illustration rather than a real client. Its spring sale ended in May. Prices went back up on most items, but about a third kept the sale price permanently, and nobody cleared the old compare-at values on those. On the store's own site, a shopper sees a strikethrough and thinks little of it. In an agent's answer, the same product is described as marked down, side by side with competitors that aren't. That might even sell a few more units. It also sets up a customer who later finds the price never changed.

Treat your catalog the way you'd treat anything published under your name. Every field an agent can read is a claim you're making to a customer. Getting product data clean, and keeping it clean as channels multiply, is a big part of our ecommerce work. If you'd like a second pair of eyes on yours, talk to us.

Related work: Spin Market.