# Field Study 01 > 30 ChatGPT shopping answers across 10 jewelry buying intents: brands were named 248 times, and 88 mentions (35.5%) included a link to the brand's own store. A dated, directional field study of returned links. - Canonical: https://research.caeliai.com/research/field-study-01-jewelry - Markdown: https://research.caeliai.com/research/field-study-01-jewelry.md - Publisher: Caeliai (https://caeliai.com), independent AI commerce research and advisory practice - Official LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/caeliai/ - Contact: contact@caeliai.com --- ChatGPT named jewelry brands 248 times across 30 fresh shopping answers: ten buying intents, each asked three times. Only 88 of those mentions, 35.5%, included a link to the brand’s own store. The rest pointed to a retailer, a marketplace, an article, or no useful link. **Figure:** Fig. 01 · Where the mention points N = 248 mentions · 30 answers · June 29, 2026 Owned-store link 88 of 248 Other or no useful link 160 of 248 ## What we did. On June 29, 2026 we asked ChatGPT the questions real jewelry shoppers ask: ten buying intents, each run three times in a fresh US session in Instant mode, 30 answers total. Every answer was preserved as a public ChatGPT share link and decoded from its raw response, 30 of 30, so every number below traces back to a real conversation rather than a screenshot. **01** ### Prompt like a shopper. Ten jewelry buying intents phrased the way a buyer would phrase them, from solid gold to pearl gifts. Each prompt ran three times in a fresh session. **02** ### Capture the evidence. Each answer saved as a public share link and decoded from the raw response payload: brands named, links shown, and the sources ChatGPT leaned on. **03** ### Follow every link. Each brand mention was classified by one question: did the answer include a link to the brand’s own store, or not? - 01 Solid gold ****** - 02 Lab-grown engagement ****** - 03 Gifts under $1,000 ****** - 04 Minimalist everyday ****** - 05 Pearl gifts ****** - 06 Ethical / sustainable ****** - 07 Brand comparison ****** - 08 Birthstone / personalized ****** - 09 Affordable luxury ****** - 10 Occasion gifts ****** *Caption:* The full prompt texts are listed in the source section at the end of this page. One caveat up front: the brand-comparison prompt names Catbird, Mejuri, Quince, and Brilliant Earth directly, so those four brands carry a few guaranteed mentions. *Caption:* Diagnostic plate · What an owned recommendation path contains Observed July 10, 2026 · separate validation example Wanderlust + Co **14K Gold Vermeil Classic Chain Necklace** $169.00 · In stock Sold by Wanderlust + Co wanderlustandco.com/products/... **5/5** Complete owned path 01 Brand is named 02 Specific product is shown 03 Image, price, and availability appear 04 Brand is the named merchant 05 Returned URL resolves to the exact official PDP 01 **Named, no owned link** Gorjana appeared 12 times. Official-store links: 0. A Monica Vinader product pointed to Nordstrom. Two checked Catbird products surfaced resale paths instead of an official PDP. One Susie Warner result exposed $89 and $113.50 price fields. *Caption:* The five checks are the Caeliai diagnostic framework. The examples come from July product-level checks, kept separate from the 30-answer pulse. ## A mention is not an owned path. A brand mention and an official-store link are separate observations. This study measures whether the response included a link to the brand’s own store; it does not measure clicks, purchases, or revenue. *Caption:* 160 of 248 mentions in this study did not include an owned-store link. 88 included one. An owned-store link is one rung on a taller ladder. This study observes whether a response names a brand, shows a product, and includes an official destination; it does not establish a purchase outcome. - 01 **Known** ChatGPT can name the brand at all. - 02 **Recommended** The brand shows up in a real shopping answer. - 03 **Product shown** An actual purchasable product, not just the brand name. - 04 **Shoppable** A product card with image, title, price, availability, and merchant. - 05 **Official path** The returned URL points to the brand’s own product page, with the brand as the seller. - 06 **Accurate** Right image, right price, right variant, in stock, nothing stale. - 07 **Consistent** Holds up across repeated runs, not one lucky answer. *Caption:* The 30-answer pulse in this study measures the jump from rung 02 to rung 05 at brand level. The July product-level checks probe rungs 03, 04, and 06. Rung 07 is why every prompt ran three times. ## Being named is not being linked to. 54 distinct brands were named across the 30 answers. Name frequency and owned-store linking are separate dimensions in this sample: the most-named brands did not always have the highest owned-link share. **Figure:** Fig. 02 · Mentions vs owned paths, top brands Bar length = times named · green segment = linked to own store **Figure:** Owned-store links / times named, per brand 30 ChatGPT answers · June 29, 2026 Most named, mixed destinations Mejuri was named 23 times and had an owned-store link in 9 of those observations. Named, no owned link Gorjana was named 12 times across six different intents and never received an owned-store link in this sample. Every observed link owned GLDN had an owned-store link for all 6 of its mentions. Baby Gold and Oradina each had 5 of 5. ## The shelf is short, and the same names keep it. Every ChatGPT answer is a shelf with roughly eight slots. Three numbers describe how those slots get filled. - **~8** - Brands named per answer (248 mentions / 30 answers) - **57%** - Of all mentions went to the ten most-named brands (142 of 248) - **21 of 54** - Brands were named exactly once and never came back *Caption:* The same regulars appeared across runs. A brand named once is a single observation, not a stable visibility rate. ## Some buying intents are still wide open. The ten intents behave like different rooms. Some are crowded with the same incumbents every run. Some have no settled answer yet. Counting the distinct brands ChatGPT named per intent across three runs shows which is which. **Figure:** Fig. 03 · Distinct brands named per intent 3 runs per intent · fewer brands = less settled **Figure:** The comparison prompt names four brands, so its count runs low by design June 29, 2026 Birthstone and personalized jewelry is the standout: five brands named across three runs, and only Ana Luisa named in 3 of 3. Occasion gifts is the opposite kind of open: 19 brands and no clear owner. Meanwhile lab-grown engagement rings and solid gold returned the same regulars every run: Blue Nile, Brilliant Earth, Clean Origin, James Allen, and Ritani for engagement; Aurate, Baby Gold, Catbird, GLDN, Mejuri, Oradina, and Quince for solid gold. The next test should include less-settled intents before drawing conclusions about category visibility. ## A pattern worth testing: breadth and owned links may diverge. **Broad and mixed paths** Brands named across the most intents often had lower owned-link shares in this small sample. Mejuri appears in 9 of 10 intents and had owned-store links for 39% of its mentions. Quince spans 7 intents at 35%. Blue Nile spans 6 at 23%. **Narrow and owned** Every brand with owned-store links for 100% of its mentions appears in three or fewer intents: GLDN, Baby Gold, Oradina, Bario Neal. Catbird is the one exception that is both broad and majority-owned: 8 intents, 55%. This is a correlation in a small sample, not a law. It is the kind of pattern we publish so it can be tested: if it holds at larger sample sizes, breadth of AI visibility and ownership of the returned path are separate problems that need separate fixes. ## What sits underneath the answers. Two layers below the visible answer shape are useful areas for a next test. The first is the catalog layer. Catbird is the strongest broad performer in this study: named in 20 of 30 answers, majority-owned paths. Yet in a separate product-level check we ran on July 1, its five tested products were missing from its own storefront catalog feed, and catalog lookups for its product names matched other sellers instead, including a “Katbird Bracelet” on a store that is not Catbird. A brand can be named in today’s answers while a separate catalog check returns other sellers. These are separate observations, not proof that one caused the other. The product-level question is the subject of our next full research paper. The second is the source layer: the pages ChatGPT leaned on while composing these answers. In the decoded retrieval and support payload of the 30 runs, the most frequent domains were not brand sites. *Caption:* Domain counts observed in the decoded retrieval and support payload of the 30 answers. These include supporting sources and search context, not only direct citations. Reddit threads, YouTube videos, and Forbes roundups outrank almost every brand’s own site. The observation inside “AI visibility” is that a brand can be named alongside a Reddit thread or magazine roundup, without the response showing evidence from the brand’s own pages. Third-party sources are a separate part of the measured context. ## Limitations, stated up front. This is a directional field study, not a market ranking. Each intent ran three times, so per-intent results are counts like “named in 3 of 3 runs,” not finely measured shares. Everything comes from one model, one mode, and one day: ChatGPT Instant, US sessions, June 29, 2026. These systems change without notice, so every figure carries its date, and brands named once or twice are anecdotes, not rates. Path classification here is binary and brand-level: owned-store links divided by times named. This study does not split the non-owned 64.5% into retailer links versus no link at all, and it does not pin each owned link to a specific run. The source-domain counts come from the decoded retrieval and support payload, which includes search context, not only confirmed citations. And the brand-comparison prompt names four brands directly, which pads their mention counts; we footnote it wherever it matters. Neither mention counts nor URL classifications measure click-through, buyers, sales, or revenue. Next in this series: a larger calibrated benchmark for the same category, with more runs per prompt and product-level path classification, so the binary split above can become the full owns-leaks-no-path picture. Caeliai Field Study 01. 30 ChatGPT Instant-mode shopping answers, US, captured June 29, 2026 as public share links and decoded from raw responses, 30 of 30. 10 prompt types, 3 fresh runs each. 248 brand mentions across 54 distinct brands after merging duplicate spellings: 88 owned-store links (35.5%), 14 brands linked to their own store in at least half their mentions, 12 linked sometimes, 28 named and never linked. Additional catalog observations come from a separate [July product-level check](https://research.caeliai.com/blog/can-chatgpt-see-your-shopify-products); they are not part of the 248-mention denominator. Independent research: no brand paid to be in it. The ten prompts: affordable luxury jewelry that does not look cheap · birthstone rings and personalized jewelry online in the US · compare Catbird, Mejuri, Quince, Brilliant Earth, and similar brands · lab-grown diamond engagement ring comparison · ethical or sustainable jewelry brands · fine jewelry gift under $1,000 · minimalist everyday jewelry with solid gold options · graduation, anniversary, or bridesmaid gifts · pearl earrings or a pearl necklace as a gift · best solid gold jewelry brands online in the US. ## Where does ChatGPT return links? We run shopping prompts for your category and classify the returned destination: your store, a reseller, an article, or no useful link.