AI agents can now read your “was” prices. Check them before Black Friday.
Since Oct 9, Shopify hands your compare-at price to AI agents. A “was” price left over from last year can now reach a shopper who is ready to buy.
compare_at_price: 120.00The strike-through price on your product page used to be for people. Since Oct 9, it is for AI agents too. Shopify now passes your compare-at price, the “was” price, to apps and agents that read Shopify Catalog, so an agent can tell a shopper “down from $120 to $79.”
That is good news when the markdown is real. It is a problem when the “was” price is a leftover.
What changed on Oct 9
Shopify’s changelog says the Catalog API now returns a merchant’s compare-at price as list_price on each product variant, so an app or agent can tell when a product is marked down and by how much. Your selling price does not change.
An agent gets the “was” price only when all three of these are true:
- You share compare-at prices through Catalog Mapping in the Shopify admin. Shopify turns this on by default for most stores, and off for stores that use compare-at for MSRP or another reference price.
- The compare-at price is higher than the selling price for that shopper.
- You show compare-at prices in the shopper’s region. Stores that hide them from EEA shoppers do not send them to those shoppers.
What the agent reads
The agent does not see your page design. It reads fields. Two prices, in minor units, and the gap between them is the discount it will repeat.
The risk: a “was” price from last year
Compare-at fields are easy to forget. A value set for last year’s sale, an old MSRP, or a number someone typed in to make a discount look bigger can sit on a product for months. Until now, few people looked at it. Now an agent may quote it to a shopper who is ready to buy.
Then the shopper reaches checkout, and the story does not match. That is the moment you lose trust, and often the sale.
Before Black Friday: four checks
Black Friday is Nov 27. Tick these off as you go.
Why this matters more every week
Shoppers now ask AI what to buy, and agents now quote prices back to them. A discount is one of the strongest reasons an agent gives for picking a product. Make sure every reason it gives about you is true.
How Shopthru.ai helps
Shopthru.ai is an AI agents team for consumer brands. It asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI, Perplexity and Copilot what your shoppers ask, finds where AI gets your prices, stock or policies wrong, and drafts each fix into an approval inbox. It ships only on your yes, then checks the answer again. Instagram and Amazon are next.