Google announced on Thursday the availability of “Universal Cart” to users in the U.S. This tool allows individuals to collect and monitor products they discover across Google Search and within the Gemini app. The company had initially previewed this feature during Google I/O in May.
The primary objective is to streamline the online shopping experience. Users can find an item they like, save it to their cart, and continue browsing. Upon returning later, their saved items and shopping progress will be retained, eliminating the need to search for products again or restart the process. Universal Cart can aggregate items from numerous retailers, serving as a centralized hub for browsing and managing potential purchases.
Google indicates that the cart also helps shoppers stay informed about deals and product availability. The tool can issue notifications when the price of a saved product drops or when an item that was previously out of stock becomes available again.
Moreover, the tool is designed to provide more tailored assistance during the shopping journey. Google mentions it can factor in credit card benefits when helping users select payment methods and can also display relevant promotional codes.
The checkout process is integrated with Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol, or UCP, an open standard introduced by the company earlier this year. UCP is designed to foster collaboration between AI agents and retailers across different phases of the shopping experience, including checkout.
Google has a significant investment in AI-powered shopping, and Universal Cart is its most recent initiative to enhance convenience. It complements features such as conversational product discovery in Search’s AI Mode and Google’s “Let Google Call” tool, which employs an AI agent to contact nearby stores to verify item availability.
Google is not the sole entity incorporating AI into e-commerce. Competitors like Amazon, OpenAI, and others have also introduced agentic commerce capabilities as companies seek to expand the utility of chatbots beyond simple question-answering.