Google Unveils Universal Cart, AI‑Powered Shopping Across Platforms

At Google’s I/O 2026, the company introduced the Universal Cart, an AI‑driven shopping experience that follows users across Search, Gemini, YouTube, and Gmail. When a shopper adds a product, the cart automatically searches for deals, price‑history insights, stock alerts, and compatibility checks, all powered by Gemini models. The cart pulls in payment perks, loyalty points, and merchant offers through Google Wallet, allowing shoppers to see hidden savings before checkout. Transactions are completed via the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), which lets users pay with Google Pay in a few taps or transfer items to the merchant’s site while keeping the brand as the merchant of record. The Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) adds guardrails, digital mandates, and a verifiable link between shopper, merchant, and payment processor, ensuring secure agentic purchases.

The feature is live in the United States this summer for major brands such as Nike, Sephora, Target, Ulta Beauty, Walmart, Wayfair, and a range of Shopify merchants including Fenty and Steve Madden. Google plans to roll out UCP‑powered checkout to Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom next, and is adding verticals such as hotel booking and local food delivery. For retailers, the shift means higher‑intent traffic but potentially reduced overall site visits, making conversion readiness and structured product data critical. Merchants must ensure inventory accuracy, loyalty integrations, and UCP compliance, while marketers may need to rethink attribution as more shopping activity occurs inside Google interfaces.

Complementing the cart, Google launched new Merchant Center tools: AI Performance Insights, which compares a brand’s share of voice against competitors across AI surfaces, and Conversational Attributes, which lets retailers add structured conversational product data to improve matching with natural queries. The company also unveiled AI Mode ad formats, including Conversational Discovery units and Highlighted Answers ads, powered by Gemini, and introduced Ask Advisor, an AI‑powered UX layer that orchestrates workflows across Google Ads, Analytics, and Merchant Center. These developments signal a broader push toward agentic commerce, positioning Google as a direct challenger to Amazon by keeping shoppers within its ecosystem.