Google on October 15 began rolling out Universal Cart in the U.S., a shopping cart that holds products from multiple retailers across Google Search, including AI Mode, and the Gemini app. In a post on Google’s blog, Suresh Ganapathy, senior director of product management for consumer shopping, called it “your new hub for shopping on Google” and pitched it as a holiday shopping tool.

Google first previewed the cart at its I/O developer conference in May, TechCrunch reported.

What the cart does

Google described four features:

  • One cart across retailers and surfaces. Shoppers can save products from many retailers wherever they shop on Google, and the cart keeps their progress. In Google’s example, a handbag saved in AI Mode in Search and a sweater and lip gloss saved later in the Gemini app all appear in the same cart.
  • Price and stock alerts. The cart runs on Google’s Shopping Graph, which the company said holds more than 60 billion continually refreshed listings. It notifies shoppers about price drops and about items coming back in stock.
  • Card perks and promo codes. Built on Google Wallet, the cart understands the benefits attached to a shopper’s cards and can help choose between payment methods. It also shows relevant promo codes.
  • Checkout. At many stores, shoppers can pay with Google Pay in a few taps, or transfer items to the merchant’s own cart and finish the purchase on the merchant’s site.

Google named Nike, Sephora, Target, Ulta Beauty, Walmart, Wayfair and “many Shopify merchants” as examples of retailers offering the simplified checkout. It did not give a total count. Shoppers receive confirmations and customer support directly from the merchant, and “they will remain the seller of record,” the post said.

The protocol underneath

Checkout in the cart is powered by the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). Google introduced UCP in a January post as an open standard for agentic commerce that covers the whole journey, from discovery and buying to post-purchase support. The aim, Google said, is to give agents and systems a common way to work across consumer surfaces, businesses and payment providers, so an agent does not need a separate connection for each one.

According to that post, by Vidhya Srinivasan, Google’s vice president and general manager of ads and commerce, UCP was co-developed with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart. Adyen, American Express, Best Buy, Flipkart, Macy’s Inc., Mastercard, Stripe, The Home Depot, Visa and Zalando endorsed it. Google said UCP is compatible with existing industry protocols, including Agent2Agent (A2A), the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) and the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Google drew a line around what the cart is. Its commerce work “spans two fronts,” Ganapathy wrote: “unlocking agentic capabilities that act on your behalf,” and “designing practical tools that give shoppers confidence and control.” Universal Cart belongs to the second. It collects, monitors and helps pay for products, but the post does not describe it as an agent that makes purchases on its own.

Why it matters

For retailers, the cart adds a place where a purchase can start, and at participating stores finish, inside Google’s own interface rather than on the retailer’s site. Because Google watches saved items for price drops and surfaces promo codes, a merchant’s price changes and promotions can reach shoppers through Google’s notifications as well as the merchant’s own channels.

The launch post does not say what a merchant must do to offer Google Pay checkout in the cart. In January, Google said it was adding dozens of new Merchant Center data attributes, such as answers to common product questions, compatible accessories and substitutes, to help products get discovered in AI Mode, Gemini and its Business Agent tool. Merchants weighing the channel can find the protocol details and Google’s merchant-side announcements in those two posts.

What to watch

The cart is available only in the U.S., and Google’s post gives no timeline for other countries. The company is also building the other track it described, agentic capabilities that act on a shopper’s behalf, and TechCrunch noted that Amazon, OpenAI and others have added similar agentic shopping features. How many merchants support Google Pay checkout in the cart during the holiday season, and how shoppers use the price alerts, will show whether a cross-retailer cart changes where online purchases are completed.

The caveats

The feature descriptions and the 60 billion listings figure come from Google. The company did not publish usage figures, merchant counts or a list of participating stores beyond the examples named, and it did not detail fees or terms for merchants in the launch post.