Google’s new Universal Cart wants to follow you across the entire internet

2026-05-19 · Source: TechCrunch · Field: Technology & Digital — Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, E-commerce & Digital Commerce, Emerging Technologies & Innovation · Depth: Fundamental Awareness, quick

Summary

Google introduced Universal Cart and updated its Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) at Google I/O, signaling a shift towards AI assistants as active participants in online commerce. Universal Cart, rolling out in the U.S. today and coming to Gemini, YouTube, and Gmail, centralizes shopping by allowing users to add products from various Google platforms. It tracks deals, monitors price drops, provides price history, and alerts for restocks. The cart also uses AI to flag compatibility issues for complex purchases like custom PCs and leverages Google Wallet for rewards maximization. AP2 enables AI agents to make secure, authorized payments on behalf of users within defined limits, with guardrails for brands, products, and spending. This expansion of Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) to categories like hotels and food delivery will extend beyond the U.S. to Canada, Australia, and the U.K.

Key takeaway

For Product Managers developing e-commerce solutions, Google's Universal Cart and AP2 represent a significant move towards agentic commerce. You should evaluate how your platforms can integrate with or respond to centralized shopping experiences and autonomous payment protocols. Consider developing AI-driven features that offer similar value-added services like price tracking, compatibility checks, and secure agent-based transactions to remain competitive.

Key insights

Google is transforming AI assistants into active commerce agents, centralizing shopping and enabling autonomous, secure payments.

Principles

• AI agents can manage complex, multi-vendor shopping journeys.
• Secure protocols are essential for agent-driven autonomous payments.

Method

Universal Cart aggregates products from Google services, tracks deals, and uses AI for purchase guidance. AP2 facilitates agent-initiated payments with user-defined limits and robust security features.

In practice

• Use Universal Cart to consolidate shopping across Google platforms.
• Set spending limits for AI agents via AP2 for secure transactions.

Topics

• Universal Cart
• Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)
• Universal Commerce Protocol
• AI-powered Shopping
• Online Commerce Agents

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Related on AIssential

• Agentic Payments In B2C Commerce: Where We Are Now — Agentic payments are evolving rapidly, driven by protocol competition and the emergence of agent-to-agent transaction capabilities.
• Google gives AI shopping agents cart, catalog, and loyalty features — Google's UCP expansion integrates core e-commerce functions for AI agents, standardizing AI-powered shopping experiences.
• How we’re helping retailers thrive with new Universal Commerce Protocol features and AI tools on Google — Google is integrating UCP and AI across its platforms to streamline shopping and empower retailers in the agentic commerce era.
• SAP and Google Cloud deploy agentic commerce architecture — SAP and Google Cloud are deploying AI-driven agentic commerce to automate enterprise marketing and retail, addressing data silos.
• The Agentic Commerce Revolution — Agentic AI unbundles traditional commerce, necessitating new trust protocols for autonomous transactions.
• How AI Agents Shop, Work, and Transact: The MCP–UCP Architecture Breakdown — MCP and UCP standardize AI agent interactions, with MCP for general tools and UCP for secure, stateful commerce transactions.

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Editorial summary, takeaway, and curation by AIssential. Original article published by TechCrunch.