Google used the National Retail Federation (NRF) 2026 event in New York on January 14, 2026 to roll out a broad retail push built around “agentic” shopping—AI systems that can guide customers from discovery to purchase and then handle post-sale support inside Google’s ecosystem.
The headline product is Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience (CX), a unified platform aimed at retailers and restaurants that blends shopping assistance with customer service. Google says the offering relies on prebuilt and configurable AI agents powered by its Gemini models, and that the agents can be deployed in days to manage tasks ranging from natural-language product search to after-purchase help.
Several large retailers said they plan to adopt the platform, including Kroger, Lowe’s, and Woolworths Group. Lowe’s chief digital and information officer Seemantini Godbole said the company will use the system to enhance its AI home-improvement adviser, Mylow, to deliver guidance “personalized to a customer’s home, their project, and where they live.”
Google CEO Sundar Pichai framed the strategy as part of an “AI platform shift,” calling retail a front-line industry in the transition. He pointed to internal usage growth on Google Cloud, saying Vertex AI processed 8.3 trillion tokens in December 2024 and more than 90 trillion tokens a year later, an 11-fold increase in 12 months.
Shopping Graph and AI Mode become the retail backbone
Pichai also tied Google’s commerce direction to the Shopping Graph, which he described as foundational infrastructure for AI-led shopping journeys. Google says the Shopping Graph now contains more than 50 billion product listings, with over 2 billion updated every hour.
The company’s AI Mode is central to that plan, with Google positioning shopping as a shift away from keyword queries toward “natural conversations”—where AI narrows choices and reduces the work of comparing products. Pichai said AI can assist through “discovery and decision to delivery,” framing the tools as an end-to-end customer experience, not just search.
Universal Commerce Protocol aims to connect agents and payments
Alongside its retail agents, Google is pushing a technical standard meant to knit the ecosystem together: the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), unveiled on January 12, 2026. Google describes UCP as an open-source standard co-developed with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart, and endorsed by more than 20 additional companies including Adyen, American Express, Best Buy, Flipkart, Macy’s Inc., Mastercard, Stripe, The Home Depot, Visa, and Zalando.
The goal is a common language that lets AI agents work across consumer surfaces, merchants, and payment providers. For shoppers, Google says it could enable payments from eligible US-based retailers directly while researching on Google, without leaving the platform. Google adds that merchants remain the seller of record and can tailor integrations to fit their operations. The company says it plans to expand UCP globally and add capabilities such as discovering related products, applying loyalty rewards, and powering custom shopping experiences across Google surfaces.
Google also introduced Business Agent, a tool designed to let shoppers interact with retailers directly from Google Search. Launch partners include Lowe’s, Michael’s, Poshmark, and Reebok. Retailers can enable and manage the feature in Merchant Center, and Google says they will soon be able to train the agent on their own data, unlock new customer insights, surface offers for related products, and enable direct purchases, including agentic checkout, within the experience.
For advertising, Google announced Direct Offers, a Google Ads pilot that surfaces exclusive deals to shoppers ready to buy in AI Mode. Early collaborators include Petco, e.l.f. Cosmetics, Samsonite, Rugs USA, and Shopify merchants. Google said it is starting with discounts, but intends to expand offers to other value signals such as bundles and free shipping—a detail the company says is aimed at helping shoppers prioritize more than price alone.
The company is also preparing Merchant Center for this “conversational commerce” era by enabling dozens of new data attributes to improve discovery across AI Mode, Gemini, and Business Agent. Google says these attributes go beyond keywords and can cover things like answers to common product questions, compatible accessories, or substitute items. The rollout will begin with a small group of retailers, expanding in the coming months.
Industry observers say consumer behavior may move quickly. Customer experience and AI strategy adviser Julia Ahfeldt has described 2026 as a potential “seismic shift” in adoption of generative and agentic AI, pointing to more than 800 million weekly ChatGPT users, including rapid growth in developing markets.
Google and partners have cited early performance indicators: during Cyber Week 2025, AI agents influenced 20% of all orders, representing $67 billion in global sales. Google-linked reporting also claims retailers using branded AI agents grew sales 32% faster than competitors in 2025, while organizations deploying autonomous AI systems saw a 28% improvement in issue resolution time and a 19% increase in first-contact resolution rates.
Still, the strategy comes with warnings from parts of the retail world. Critics argue that Google’s history of keeping users inside its own surfaces—already seen in other industries—could pressure retailer margins, weaken loyalty programs, and concentrate more market power with the platform.
Those concerns arrive as Google’s parent company, Alphabet, continues to post strong numbers. The firm reported its first $100 billion revenue quarter in Q3 2025, while Google Cloud grew 34% to $15.2 billion. Alphabet closed 2025 with the release of Gemini 3, which it said brought improved reasoning and a 1 million-token context window—a rollout that was credited with helping fuel a 65% stock rally and lifting Alphabet’s market capitalization to nearly $4 trillion.
Regulatory pressure remains a parallel storyline. A U.S. federal judge has barred Google from exclusive search deals, and the European Commission has issued a €2.95 billion fine tied to ad-tech practices.
On logistics, Google highlighted continued expansion by Wing, its drone delivery partner. Wing and Walmart doubled deliveries in 2025 and plan to expand to Houston and other U.S. cities in early 2026, linking faster fulfillment to the new shopping and checkout flows.
In a smaller but notable marketing move, Google also pointed to the reunification of creative leaders Kasia Canning and Estefanio Holtz—known for launching Black-Owned Friday—as co-executive creative directors, signaling an emphasis on inclusive campaigns as its commerce tools roll out.
Google says the coming months will focus on scaling pilots, expanding UCP, and broadening merchant data tools—steps that could determine whether “agentic commerce” becomes a new retail norm or another platform battle over who owns the customer journey.
