This weekend, Google turned up the heat in the AI shopping wars by announcing plans to turn Gemini into a retailer and launching an open-source standard developed with major retailers including Shopify, Walmart and Target. The move comes as companies such as OpenAI, Amazon and Perplexity jockey for power and influence at the heart of the growing AI-powered shopping ecosystem, and as consumers increasingly turn to the technology to streamline their shopping experience.
At the National Retail Federation’s annual conference this weekend, Google said it has partnered with Shopify, Target, Walmart, Wayfair and Etsy to develop a protocol that aims to become the industry standard for shopping with artificial intelligence. The standardcalled the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), aims to improve the way AI agents and retailer systems communicate throughout the entire shopping process, from product discovery and payment to post-purchase support, explained Google vice president of advertising and commerce Vidhya Srinivasan in blog post. In other words, it establishes a common language for agents – AI tools capable of operating independently – and online shopping systems.
Google says the up-to-date standard will introduce a “payment feature” in Search and Gemini in the future, which will allow users to make purchases directly using AI tools, without having to switch between apps or websites. The feature will put Gemini and Google’s AI Mode in search on par with competitors such as Microsoft’s Copilot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which launched shopping options last year.
Google hopes UCP will be widely adopted by retailers and others in the e-commerce ecosystem – an area that is quickly becoming a battleground for companies looking to prove the concrete value of generative AI. UCP is open source, which means companies can exploit it freely, rather than creating their own tools to interact with AI agents. It is compatible with existing industry standards such as the Model Context Protocol, Srinivasan says. It will compete with OpenAI’s similar agentic shopping standard launched last year, Agentic Commerce Protocol, which is also open source.
The Google executive says UCP has already gained the support of more than 20 other companies in the online shopping ecosystem. This includes payments giants such as Visa, Mastercard, American Express, PayPal and Stripe, as well as retailers such as The Home Depot, Macy’s, Best Buy, Kroger, Lowe’s, Gap and Zalando. Ant Group, a subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has also done so approved standard. Many of these partners likely work or already work with other AI companies. For example, Shopify merchants can sell in AI modes in Gemini, ChatGPT, and Microsoft Copilot, and PayPal has also partnered with OpenAI.
In addition to the Gemini Buy button and the UCP standard, Google also announced that it is launching business agent on Monday, which will allow shoppers to chat with brands directly within the search engine. In this case, “directly” means talking to a brand virtual assistant who can “answer questions about the product in the voice of the brand.” Retailers including Lowe’s, Michael’s, Poshmark and Reebok were among the first to sign up.
The announcements come as companies pivot to AI-powered shopping, with companies like Amazon using it in almost every step of the shopping experience. This technology has yet to prove itself as a useful assistant – EdgeThe company’s experience has been spotty, to say the least, but companies are confident that AI agents are the future. Google CEO Sundar Pichai he said the company’s up-to-date standard lays the “foundation” for agency shopping, which “will be a big part of how we shop in the near future.”