Google launched Universal Cart in the US across AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app, a single cart that holds products from multiple retailers and lets shoppers check out over Universal Commerce Protocol.
Quick Backstory: Google and Shopify launched the Universal Commerce Protocol in January as an open standard for letting AI agents check out on websites, developed with partners including Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart. It seemed promising at the time, but initially lacked several key features, such as multi-item carts, live product details like inventory and pricing, and account linking for loyalty perks, so agents could only check out one item at a time as an anonymous shopper. Google added some of those features in March, but carts were still limited to a single store. Google then previewed Universal Cart at its I/O conference in May, which promised to solve that issue. It was supposed to launch this summer, but it only launched last week.
Here’s what we know about Universal Cart so far:
- It syncs across Google products, so items saved in AI Mode or the Gemini app stay in the same cart, with YouTube and Gmail versions coming later.
- Major retailers and platforms are on board, including Walmart, Target, Nike, Sephora, Ulta Beauty, Wayfair, and many Shopify merchants.
- The cart can track prices and inventory and sends alerts when a saved item drops in price or comes back in stock.
- The cart can find promo codes and show them right in the cart. (There goes your e-mail funnel.)
- It’s built on Google Wallet, so it knows a shopper’s card perks and can suggest which payment method is best.
- At some stores, shoppers pay with Google Pay inside the cart. At others, the items transfer to the merchant’s own cart to finish on its site.
- Merchants stay the seller of record and handle order confirmations and customer support.
Honestly, I don’t like it.
Universal Cart is good for Google, but not for merchants. What about our e-mail captures, upsells and cross-sells, and well-crafted PDPs that share the story of our products with videos, educational content (outside of the main product description), and UGC? What about our ability to create a shopping experience far beyond the sterile, all-white user interface that Google’s AI delivers?
I didn’t ask for every discovery channel to become its own marketplace, and neither did you. We were sold on AI agents shopping on our websites on behalf of customers. What we got was a redesigned discovery layer that keeps shoppers away from our own storefronts — our online presence reduced to product data that powers a listing we have no control over.
What happened decades ago to brick-and-mortar retail is now happening again to e-commerce. In the old days, merchants would open a physical storefront on Main Street to sell their wares. Then department stores and mega retailers took over, and the best that merchants could hope for was space on someone else’s shelf. (If they paid the endcap fee in many cases.) D2C e-commerce is experiencing a similar phenomenon, and if these AI firms have it their way, no one will visit your storefront and the best you’ll be able to hope for is space on their digital shelf.
Google used to give directions. Now it’s built a dome around the city and has declared itself the destination. And Shopify doesn’t care, as long as it keeps getting a slice of the payments. What happened to arming the rebels?
It’s not all doom and gloom though. I love this industry and am excited about the new opportunities that AI legitimately brings to merchants. However, I fear that the big search and AI players (which are effectively the same thing now) are beginning to build a moat around our storefronts and will eventually start charging for space to put up a sign big enough for customers to read from across the water. Universal Cart is a novelty today, but once it becomes the de facto way that shoppers engage with products when searching on Google, it’ll very quickly become pay-to-play to get discovered.
