Google has announced major upgrades to its AI-powered shopping tools, integrating deeper conversational AI, agentic checkout solutions, and even enabling its AI to place phone orders to stores.
These advancements further push Google Shopping to the forefront of generative AI-powered commerce, responding to increasing competition and demands for more seamless, intelligent shopping experiences.
For developers, startups, and AI professionals, these updates unlock new commerce opportunities, while signaling how rapidly LLM-based agentic systems are becoming part of daily real-world transactions.
Key Takeaways
- Google is launching advanced conversational shopping features powered by its Gemini LLM, promising vastly improved product discovery.
- The new agentic checkout flow allows AI to handle the purchasing process across multiple merchants, reducing friction for online shoppers.
- Google’s AI can autonomously place phone calls to physical stores for product inventory checks and purchases, blending online and offline commerce.
- These capabilities strengthen Google’s competitive position in AI shopping, rivaling Amazon and new upstarts leveraging generative AI.
- Google is offering APIs and platform tools for startups and developers to integrate these AI shopping functions.
Google’s AI now does more than recommend — it can act as a shopping agent, directly conversing, searching, and transacting across the web and phone.
Expanded Conversational AI Shopping Experiences
Google leverages its Gemini LLM to upgrade the Shopping search experience, enabling users to interact using natural language.
Instead of rigid filters or endless scrolling, shoppers can describe desired features or ask nuanced questions like “What’s the best camera for night photography under $500?” Gemini surfaces options and reasons in real-time dialog.
This represents a tangible shift from keyword-driven discovery to contextual conversations—a trend also seen with Amazon’s Rufus and Shopify’s Sidekick assistants.
Agentic Checkout: Smarter Purchase Flows
Agentic checkout removes typical ecommerce friction by allowing Google’s AI to fill out forms, enter shipping details, and complete multi-merchant purchases all within a unified chat.
PayPal-like flows get replaced by an LLM-driven assistant streamlining the process end-to-end. For startups, this tech can reduce abandonment rates and enable smarter cart management.
Developers gain API access for customized workflows, supporting everything from multi-brand drops to loyalty integrations.
By automating order placement and checkout, Google transforms conversational search into true agentic commerce.
Bridging Online & In-Store with Autonomous Phone Agents
Perhaps most groundbreaking, Google’s AI can now make phone calls to check inventory or place orders at local stores (leveraging the same technology from Duplex).
For shoppers, this means verification and transactions can continue even when online data is limited. For merchants and developers, it opens new hybrid commerce experiences integrating AI with legacy retail infrastructure.
This places Google a step ahead, as neither Amazon nor other competitors currently offer easy agent-to-phone retail automation at this scale.
Implications for Developers, Startups, and Commerce Innovators
For developers, Google’s rollout includes new APIs—the Shopping Graph API for real-time product data and agentic transaction modules to embed advanced commerce logic into custom solutions.
Startups can leverage these agentic tools to build category-specific platforms, verticalized assistants, or leverage the phone agent features to disrupt local retail flows.
AI professionals have clear evidence that LLM advancements aren’t limited to research: real-world, revenue-critical systems now depend on their performance and reliability.
The expansion proves that generative AI’s role in commerce is evolving—from simple recommendations to executing complex, multi-channel transactions at scale.
How This Changes the AI Commerce Landscape
With Microsoft investing in its Copilot for Shopping and Amazon pushing generative search, Google’s move sets a new baseline for AI-driven customer journeys.
The blending of large language models with purchase flows and real-world phone automation marks a defining moment.
Businesses must now consider agentic AI as the foundation of future-ready commerce, not just as an add-on.
Industry analysts suggest these tools will redefine customer expectations, force platforms to open interfaces for agentic automation, and accelerate AI adoption at every layer of e-commerce infrastructure.
Source: TechCrunch
