AI-Generated Product Images Need an IPTC Tag in Merchant Center

Google’s updated guidance on generative AI content, dated 1 October 2026, includes a short paragraph that matters more to online shops than to bloggers: Merchant Center requires AI-generated images to carry IPTC DigitalSourceType metadata, and AI-generated product titles and descriptions to be specified separately and labelled. The rule is not new, but the guidance now points to it in the same breath as the general advice on AI content, and a WooCommerce feed is exactly where it can be broken without anyone noticing.

What the policy requires for images

The Merchant Center policy on AI-generated content says every image created with generative AI must carry IPTC metadata marking it as AI-generated, using the DigitalSourceType property. Three values are named:

• trainedAlgorithmicMedia for an image generated by a model.
• CompositeSynthetic for a composite that includes synthetic elements.
• AlgorithmicMedia for an image created purely by an algorithm, without sampled training data.

It also says not to remove embedded metadata tags from images made with generative AI tools, and gives Product Studio as an example. AI-generated images may be used in the main image link, the additional image links and the lifestyle image link attributes. The requirement attaches to the file itself, which is why it is easy to meet at creation and easy to lose later.

What the policy requires for titles and descriptions

AI-generated text cannot be placed only in the ordinary title or description attributes. The policy asks for structured_title and structured_description instead, each with two sub-attributes: digital_source_type, set to trained_algorithmic_media, and content, holding the plain text. The ordinary attributes may be sent alongside them. A product feed plugin that fills the ordinary fields from an AI tool is therefore sending content that the policy says should be labelled in a different place.

The page carries no last-updated date, only a copyright notice, so it should be re-read before any compliance decision rests on it. The broader statement about how site owners should handle AI-assisted content is in the generative AI content guidance, and the review step it describes is covered in the post on Google’s October rewrite of that guidance.

Where the metadata gets lost

The policy says to preserve the tags, and any step that rewrites a file can drop embedded metadata. A WordPress site generates resized copies of every uploaded image, and image optimisation plugins and CDNs can recompress or convert files again. Whether the metadata survives each step depends on the image library and the settings used, which is a reason to test the final file rather than the original. The file that matters is the one at the URL in the feed, not the one that left the design tool. That is also the file Google fetches, so a clean original proves nothing about what the policy check sees.

Checking it takes a minute with ExifTool. Download the image exactly as the feed links to it and run exiftool -DigitalSourceType image.jpg. If the command prints a value, the tag survived. If it prints nothing, it was stripped somewhere between the original and the public URL, and the order of the pipeline stages is the place to look.

A short audit for a WooCommerce store

Three questions cover most of the risk. First, which images and which text fields were produced with generative AI, which has to be known from the people or tools involved, since nothing on the site records it by default. Second, whether the feed plugin can output structured_title and structured_description, or whether AI text is going into the ordinary fields. Third, whether the final image files carry the tag, tested on a sample from each product category.

Where an image is a photograph that was only retouched, the policy as retrieved does not spell out which value applies, and that case should be checked against the live page before an assumption is made. General image practice for shops, including filenames and alt text, is covered in the post on product image SEO and Merchant Center, and the alt text side of AI images in the post on AI-generated images and alt text. Neither replaces the metadata check, because the tag is read from the file and not from the page that displays it.