Google Launches Universal Cart in the U.S., Putting One Shopping Cart Across Search and Gemini Just Ahead of the Holidays
The cart saves products from multiple retailers, alerts shoppers to price drops and restocks, suggests promo codes and the best card to pay with, and checks out through Google's open Universal Commerce Protocol.
Google (GOOGL) launched Universal Cart in the U.S. on Thursday, a shopping cart that follows shoppers across Google Search and the Gemini app. It lets people save products from many retailers in one place, tracks them for price drops and restocks, and can check out through Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), the open standard it built for AI shopping agents. The rollout starts ahead of the holiday shopping season.
What the cart does
| Feature | How it works |
|---|---|
| One cart across surfaces | Save products from multiple retailers in Search, including AI Mode, and in Gemini; progress carries across both |
| Price and stock alerts | Notifies shoppers when a saved item drops in price or an out-of-stock item returns |
| Promo codes | Shows relevant codes inside the cart |
| Payment guidance | Built on Google Wallet, so it can factor card perks into which card to use |
| Checkout | Pay in a few taps with Google Pay at many merchants, or send items to the merchant's own cart |
Google said merchants remain the seller of record and handle order confirmations and customer support. It named Nike, Sephora, Target, Ulta Beauty, Walmart and Wayfair, along with many Shopify merchants, as participants. The cart draws on more than 60 billion continually refreshed listings in Google's Shopping Graph. Google previewed the product at its I/O conference in May.
The protocol behind checkout
Universal Cart's checkout runs on UCP, which Google introduced in January at the National Retail Federation conference. It is an open-source standard, released under the Apache 2.0 license, that gives AI agents, retail platforms and payment providers a common way to handle shopping from discovery through post-purchase support. Google said more than 20 companies, including Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, Walmart and Visa, co-developed or endorsed it. Merchants use a Google Merchant Center account and an eligible product feed to take part, according to The New Stack.
Where it fits
The launch builds on Google's conversational shopping in AI Mode and on "Let Google Call," which uses an AI agent to phone nearby stores and check whether an item is in stock. It also puts Google into direct competition on agentic commerce with Amazon's closed shopping agent and with the Agentic Commerce Protocol that OpenAI and Stripe back, according to TechCrunch and The New Stack. Google did not announce pricing, usage limits or availability outside the U.S., and its launch post mentions only Search and Gemini.
The stock
GOOGL closed Wednesday at $347.64, down 1.7%, and traded around $351, up about 1%, at 10:12 a.m. ET on Thursday, according to StockAnalysis.com. The launch is a product move rather than a financial event, and Google did not give any revenue figures for it.
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