Google provides buy buttons for Gemini and AI search

Google stirred up the AI ​​shopping wars this weekend, announcing plans to turn Gemini into a merchant and launching an open source standard built in collaboration with major retailers including Shopify, Walmart, and Target. The move comes as companies like OpenAI, Amazon and Perplexity vie for power and influence at the heart of the growing AI-powered shopping ecosystem, with consumers increasingly turning to technology to simplify the purchasing process.

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 it hopes will become the industry standard for shopping using artificial intelligence. the standardThe Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is designed to simplify how AI agents and retailers’ systems communicate throughout the shopping process, from product discovery and checkout to post-purchase support, Google’s vice president of advertising and commerce Vidhya Srinivasan explained in an article. Blog post. In other words, it creates a common language between agents — artificial intelligence tools capable of acting autonomously — and online shopping systems.

Google says the new standard will power an upcoming “payment feature” on the search engine and Gemini, which will allow users to make direct purchases using AI tools without having to switch between apps or web pages. This feature will bring Gemini and Google AI’s positioning in search in line with competitors like Microsoft Co-pilot And OpenAI ChatGPTwhich launched call options last year.

Google hopes that the UCP will be widely used by retailers and others in the e-commerce ecosystem, an area that is quickly becoming a battleground for companies to prove the tangible value of generative AI. UCP is open source, meaning companies can use it freely instead of having to develop their own tools to engage with AI agents. It is compatible with current industry standards such as Model context protocolSrinivasan says. It will compete with a similar proxy shopping standard that OpenAI recently launched, the Proxy Commerce Protocol, which is also open source.

The Google CEO says UCP has already won approval from more than 20 other companies in the online shopping ecosystem. This includes payment giants like Visa, Mastercard, American Express, PayPal, and Stripe, as well as retailers like 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 He supported Standard. Many of these partners are likely to have partnered with other AI companies, or already have. For example, Shopify merchants can sell in AI modes on Gemini, ChatGPT, and Microsoft Copilot, and PayPal also has a partner With OpenAI.

In addition to the buy button on Gemini and the UCP standard, Google also said it will launch one Business agent On Monday, shoppers will be allowed to chat with brands directly on search. In this case, “live” means chatting with a virtual assistant from the brand who can “answer product questions in the brand’s voice.” Retailers including Lowe’s, Michael’s, Poshmark and Reebok were among the first to sign up.

These announcements come at a time when companies are betting big on artificial intelligence-based shopping, with companies like Amazon introducing it into almost every step of the shopping experience. Technology has not yet proven itself as a useful assistant – Edge‘s expertise This is a flaw, to say the least, but companies are confident that AI agents are the future. Google CEO Sundar Pichai He said The company’s new standard lays “the foundation” for agent shopping, which “will be a big part of how we shop in the not-too-distant future.”