Google AI Mode shows the same products 21.6% more expensive than traditional search
Over 23 days (August 9 to 31, 2026), we tracked more than 2 million product listings across more than 100,000 SERPs and AI Mode responses. We ran the same shopping queries through both Google AI Mode and traditional search on the same day at the same moment. When the exact same product showed up on both, the price in AI Mode was 21.6% higher on average.
When the same product appears on both sides, how do the prices compare? And how does the overall mix of recommended products differ between the two? That's what this study set out to answer.
Key findings at a glance:
- For matched products ranking in both AI Mode and traditional search, AI Mode is 21.6% more expensive.
- Looking at all products on each side (not just the matches), AI Mode listings sit 49% higher than traditional search listings.
- Only 1.28% of products ranking in traditional search also appear in AI Mode for the same search on the same day.
- Matched products show a price discrepancy 38.1% of the time; when they do, AI Mode is more expensive 68.4% of the time (about two-thirds).
- The main seller differs on 49.6% of matched products.
Finding 1: the same products cost more in AI Mode
This is the most direct comparison in the study. Same product, same search, so the only thing changing is which search type you are on. We matched products across AI Mode and traditional search, then compared the lead price on each side. Across those matched pairs, AI Mode was 21.6% more expensive.
Same product, same query, same day
Price difference: AI Mode vs traditional search, for matched products only.
+21.6%
more expensive in AI Mode on matched products
Source:
Productrise
· productrise.app
This is a fascinating study that reveals more about Google's Shopping Graph and the inconsistencies between classic search and AI Mode for free listing placements. While the higher price might be displayed within the grid result in AI Mode (making the top-level comparison less accurate), what we tend to see is that the retailer with the lowest price gets the click in the end.
This research is useful from a consumer perspective, as it is helpful to understand that the products being recommended in AI Mode might not be giving 'price' as much weighting as we would have expected.
B
Brodie Clark
Independent SEO Consultant
The screenshots below are real examples from our dataset. Each pair is from the same search: traditional search on the left, AI Mode on the right.
Example: #1 position, AI Mode 26% more expensive
Example: different seller, 19% higher in AI Mode
Same product, same query, and the price on the right is consistently higher.
AI search was supposed to eliminate the friction of comparing prices across five different tabs, but if it only serves pricier inventory by default, it hasn't saved us any work. We're trading the visible effort of opening multiple windows for the invisible penalty of paying more without ever seeing the cheaper option that was one tab over.
When algorithms favor the more expensive item two-thirds of the time and swap out the seller entirely, it changes how discovery works. Open market comparison is replaced by a curated path to higher-priced stock. If these platforms are built for users, it's worth asking: who actually benefits from this?
K
Katelyn Geary
Senior SEO Strategist,
Break The Web
Finding 2: AI Mode tends to surface higher-priced products
Matched products give the cleanest comparison, but they're only part of the picture. To see the bigger pattern, we also compared every priced listing on each side, including products that appear on only one of them.
On this broader basis, the typical product in AI Mode is priced well above the typical product in traditional search: a median of $149 in AI Mode versus $100 in traditional search, about 49% higher.
The chart below shows the full spread of prices on each side. Traditional search is on the left, AI Mode on the right, and each dashed line marks that side's median price.
Price distribution: traditional search vs AI Mode
All priced listings in the study window. Left = traditional search (gray). Right = AI Mode (teal). Bar width = share of all listings on both sides combined. Each side uses its own horizontal scale so the smaller AI Mode distribution stays readable. Y-axis is logarithmic. Dashed line = median price per side.
Source:
Productrise
· productrise.app
The AI Mode side looks smaller for a simple reason: AI Mode shows far fewer products to begin with, so it makes up a much smaller share of all the listings we tracked. This is in line with our previous study. In the current data set, AI Mode makes up just 12.3% of all the products shown, an average of 3.9 products versus 27.8 in traditional search.
Example: pre-owned outlier in traditional search, new price in AI Mode
Example: #1 position, slightly higher in AI Mode, different seller and title
Finding 3: very little product overlap between AI Mode and traditional search
Even when both sides respond to the same search, they rarely show the same products on the same day. Across our data, only 1.28% of products ranking in traditional search also appeared in AI Mode. Our July study found a similar pattern at a broader level: AI Mode ranked just ~5% of the products that rank in traditional search overall.
Products shown per search, and how many overlap
Average number of products shown when both sides respond to the same shopping search. Each square is one product.
Traditional search
27.8
AI Mode
3.9
Overlapping products
0.94
Source:
Productrise
· productrise.app
The overlapping product number is an interesting finding: when both sides respond to the same query, they rarely land on the same products. And the ones AI Mode does pick are going against the grain with how Google usually rewards the cheapest listing.
Seeing that prices in AI Mode are +21.6% more expensive is a stark contrast to the way we've seen Google rank products within product listings. It's often the cheapest product getting the most attention (and the best visual treatment). Not to mention, Google has rolled out features specifically for price-conscious shoppers.
Those same pricing treatments are effectively forgotten in the AI Mode examples.
Not only is AI Mode showing fewer products, they're showing more expensive ones. I think this is a small win for merchants who don't always want to compete solely on price.
One thing not explicitly stated in the study but something I observed from the screenshots: AI Mode seems more likely to link to the brand's website itself over the marketplace, as we also tend to see. If we're seeing that it's the merchant's website taking priority over third-party marketplaces (for applicable products), this is huge.
This is another reason why enriching your product feed data with things like Product Highlights and Product Details helps AI better serve your product.
J
Jamie D'Alessandro
SEO Manager,
JAKALA
Finding 4: when prices disagree, AI Mode is more expensive two-thirds of the time
When the same product appears on both sides, the two prices actually disagree 38.1% of the time. When they do, AI Mode is the pricier one in about two-thirds of cases (68.4%).
When AI Mode is the more expensive side, the median price difference is 22.2%. The average is 88.5%, but that figure is heavily influenced by extreme outliers (for example, a used item in traditional search matched against a new one in AI Mode).
Price difference when AI Mode is more expensive
Among matched products where AI Mode is more expensive than traditional search.
+22.2%
median price difference
+88.5%
average (skewed by outliers)
Source:
Productrise
· productrise.app
Example: deal price in traditional search, 12.5% higher in AI Mode
When prices do disagree, AI Mode is more often the expensive side, and often by a significant margin.
As a consumer, this hits hard given the pressures around cost of living and economic instability. It also challenges the general consensus that AI provides a better, more customer-focused shopping experience, particularly when you look at AI's ability to lower cognitive load compared with a more traditional search experience, with the price discrepancy in mind.
Depending on the market, between 30% and 75% of consumers cite price as the most important factor in a purchase decision, so this discrepancy could directly impact revenue even if you are performing in both experiences.
As a brand, it highlights the need for increasing visibility on what AI is showing users. 'Fact-checking' AI in shopping experiences just got a whole lot more important. I'll be considering exactly how 'aligned' SEO and GEO are, focusing more on how I might track shopping feed visibility and aiming to align every data-source I have to 'one price'.
T
Tristan James
SEO,
EE
Finding 5: when AI Mode is cheaper, the gap is smaller
On the remaining cases where AI Mode is cheaper, the median price difference is 7.8% and the average is 11.9%, a smaller gap than when AI Mode is the expensive side.
Price difference when AI Mode is cheaper
Among matched products where AI Mode is cheaper than traditional search.
−7.8%
median price difference
−11.9%
average price difference
Source:
Productrise
· productrise.app
Example: AI Mode slightly cheaper via different seller and image
Example: AI Mode slightly cheaper (outlier), traditional search 1% more expensive
Finding 6: different sellers nearly half the time
When the same product ranks on both AI Mode and traditional search, the main seller is different 49.6% of the time. Price and seller changes often travel together.
Seller mismatch on matched products
Same product. Different lead seller.
49.6%
of matched products show a different main seller
Source:
Productrise
· productrise.app
Example: same price, different seller
Example: different seller and title, 2% higher in AI Mode
A different price is one thing. A different seller on the same product is another, and our data shows that happens nearly half the time.
The seller swap on almost half of matched products is the bit that should worry retailers more than the price gap itself. It suggests AI Mode isn't just re-ranking the same offer, it's picking a different one on its own criteria. Feed data and availability are the obvious candidates, but AI surfaces like this typically also weigh third-party citations, reviews, press, and other sources beyond the merchant's own feed, when selecting what to recommend.
C
Callum Lockwood
Director of Organic Search,
Re:signal
More product examples
Not every matched product shows a price gap. These additional pairs illustrate same-price listings, title rewrites, and ranking differences on otherwise identical offers.
Example: same price and seller, different title
Example: same offer ranked #8 in traditional search vs #1 in AI Mode
These examples show that matched products don't always carry a price gap. In fact the prices agree about 68% of the time, even when the lead seller is different.
Why this matters
Shoppers tend to assume AI Mode is working on their behalf, surfacing the best option the way regular search has done for years. The lead price isn't the only one available: click a product in either AI Mode or traditional search, and a knowledge panel opens in the sidebar listing other sellers and their prices. But that takes a deliberate click, and most people won't make it. When the main listing is presented as the recommended choice, it's reasonable to assume it already carries the best price, so there's little reason to go hunting for a cheaper seller. The number shoppers see first is the number most will act on, and in AI Mode that number tends to be higher.
This is a snapshot of a surface Google is still actively evolving, which is why I'd pay attention to the ongoing trackers as much as the data in this study. Google has a clear incentive to get people from a question to a purchase faster, and four products in an answer does that better than twenty.
You can already see it in the format: more text and education sitting alongside the product recommendations, so the research that used to happen across five tabs now happens in the answer. I'd expect buying cycles to shorten because of it. Solid product data and covering your customer journey is now an absolute must.
J
Jeff Collins
SEO Consultant
As Google moves more shopping journeys into AI Mode, often carrying the same query straight over so the shopper doesn't realize the search type changed, that blind spot matters. Brands need to know what Google recommends there, and at what price, not just what ranks in the familiar carousel.
It's worth looking at how directly Google routes shoppers into AI Mode, because in most cases the switch happens without any deliberate choice. The same query carries straight over, so from the shopper's point of view nothing appears to change. Here's where those entry points show up.
Google now shows a prominent AI Mode directly on the standard search box, which leads to AI Mode while keeping the same query in place.
Desktop browsers using Chrome have the AI Mode button straight in the address bar.
Search results come with an AI mode tab, which leads straight into AI Mode while using the same query.
Source:
Productrise
· productrise.app
Google has spent the last year pulling AI Mode closer and closer to the standard search experience, and they've said they intend to keep going. As that happens, the price a shopper sees first matters more, because most people don't go hunting past it. The lead listing acts as an anchor: click through on either surface and the knowledge panel still lists other sellers, sometimes cheaper ones, but reaching it takes a click that most shoppers don't make.
What the data suggests is that the cheapest price is less of a factor in AI Mode. And if the model isn't gating visibility on lowest-price, that changes who gets to compete. Brands that cannot win the race to the bottom may now have a better shot: better feeds, richer product data, reviews and alignment with shopping conversations can make an AI confident enough to recommend them.
H
Hugo Huijer
Founder,
Productrise
Our methodology
Over 23 days, we tracked more than 2 million product listings across more than 100,000 SERPs and AI Mode responses, running the same query on both sides on the same calendar day. We tracked product-centric shopping queries in the US and UK from August 9 to August 31, 2026. On the SERP side we limited analysis to popular_products carousel listings; on the AI Mode side we used all tracked product cards. Products were matched across sides using Google's stable product identifier when present, for the same query on the same calendar day.
Headline prices in Findings 1, 4 and 5 compare matched products only: the same product, for the same query, on the same calendar day. For each pair we take the lead offer on each side (lowest listing position), then measure how much higher or lower the AI Mode price was relative to the traditional search price: (AI Mode price − SERP price) / SERP price. Finding 2 uses a separate, broader comparison that includes every priced listing on each side, not just matches, and reports the difference between the two medians. US prices are in USD and UK prices are in GBP; we do not convert currencies.
For the remaining matched-product stats (how often prices disagree, which side is higher, seller mismatch), we use the same lead-offer pairs as the headline. For overlap, we calculated a match rate for each day (matched products divided by all traditional-search listings with a product identifier), then averaged those daily rates. While this study uses a completely new dataset, it is a natural follow-up to our July 2026 study, which found that AI Mode returns about 95% fewer product listings than traditional search on the same queries.
About this study
This study was produced by Productrise, a platform for tracking organic product visibility in Google. All figures were computed directly from our tracking database over the study window. You are welcome to reuse, reference, or republish the charts and findings, as long as you attribute Productrise and link back to this page. Questions or data requests are welcome at hello@productrise.app.