Google launches Universal Cart in AI Mode and Gemini

Google has launched Universal Cart, an AI shopping hub that gathers items from multiple retailers into one place, checks them against its Shopping Graph’s “60+ billion continually refreshed” listings for price and inventory changes, and lets shoppers check out via Google Pay or a transfer to the merchant’s own site, per Google’s own announcement. The tool is rolling out in the U.S. across AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app, with Nike, Sephora, Target, Ulta Beauty, Walmart, Wayfair and unnamed Shopify merchants as launch partners; Google says it previewed the feature “earlier this year” — at I/O in May, per The Verge — and merchants remain the seller of record. It runs on the Universal Commerce Protocol, the same open standard behind the Merchant Center checkout auto-enrollment and AI Mode hotel-booking adoption the wire covered in September; Google’s post names no fee and no timeline for rollout beyond the U.S.