Google’s AI shopping update on the cusp of the holiday gift-buying season showcases the latest opportunities available to both small businesses and enterprises using AI technology.
It also highlights AI vendors’ push to incorporate tools for online shopping that enable consumers to designate autonomous AI agents to select and purchase goods and services on their behalf.
Google on Nov. 12 released new AI shopping features that enable consumers to perform tasks such as searching for products and comparing items. Google is also making shopping more conversational in AI Mode. Users can ask the generative conversational tool a shopping question and get an intelligent response. AI Mode is powered by the Shopping Graph, which comprises more than 50 billion product listings, according to the tech giant.
Google’s Gemini generative AI app also features new shopping capabilities that enable users to ask conversational shopping questions.
Another feature is “Let Google Call.” With this, users can allow Google to call stores on their behalf. Google introduced a similar business calling feature in Search in July, which also enables Google to make calls on behalf of search users.
Finally, Google’s new agentic checkout feature enables users to automatically track an item using the price-tracking feature. Users will then get notified when the price is budget-friendly. Google can buy the item on behalf of users if the merchant is eligible, and after Google has verified the purchase and shipping details. Eligible merchants include Wayfair, Quince, and some Shopify sellers.
Not Completely New
Some of the new features that Google is rolling out are similar to Perplexity’s Buy With Pro feature, which enables users to purchase a product directly from the AI search browser. OpenAI’s Instant Checkout also lets users to make purchases within ChatGPT.
“This is just Google getting to parity with what the other providers are offering,” said Nikhil Lai, an analyst at Gartner.
He added that Google already has the capabilities in Google Merchant Center. So, the vendor is moving the shopping feature, central to its search results, to AI Mode and providing a different UI.
The difference between Google’s shopping capabilities and those from OpenAI and Perplexity is that Google already has the trust of consumers, Lai said.
“Consumers already trust the information that they’re getting from Google, and so I expect adoption of the agentic checkout feature from Google to be deeper and broader than adoption of Instant Checkout in ChatGPT or Buy with Pro in perplexity,” he said.
The Business Takeaway
While Google is mainly targeting consumers, retailers will still need to ensure that the information in their product feeds is as accurate as possible on eligible merchant websites, so that consumers can have the same experience they would if they were checking out from, say, Chewy.com, Wayfair, or Shopify stores, Lai said.
“That checkout experience is moving from the merchant’s site to AI mode in this case, and the only thing that the merchant can control in AI mode is the quality of the information that shows up there,” he said.
Because the quality of content is essential, small businesses should focus on ensuring their FAQ sections on their product sites are well-structured, said Liz Miller, an analyst at Constellation Research.
“For a small business wanting to appear in any of these AI Mode shopping responses, remember that authority in content will be critical,” Miller said. “Clear answers that answer the prompt a customer might ask are a great starting point.”
The same holds for larger enterprises, Miller continued, adding that answer engine optimization and generative engine optimization (techniques that focus on structuring content for AI-powered search tools to cite or reference) comprise a level playing field for both small businesses and large enterprises.
“So just as much as small businesses should be architecting content that will deliver better answers in Gemini, enterprises need to ensure that they have also captured the authority and the clarity of answers that these models crave,” she said.
While Google is using its new features to connect AI to both digital and physical commerce, the experience could be punctuated by errors. For Google, this means the vendor must ensure that it has guardrails in place to protect the consumer, Miller said.
“Customers will not accept transactional errors or AI transacting outside of explicit price parameters or permissions as a ‘hallucination,’ she said. “It will be called a scam.”
