Google Hijacks OpenAI’s AI Shopping Party as Retailers Rally Behind Its New Protocol
Shopping through chatbots was supposed to be OpenAI’s big money move — but Google is stealing the lane. While ChatGPT’s checkout feature remains stuck in a slow, messy rollout, GoogleGOOGL has launched the open-source Universal Commerce Protocol with ShopifySHOP, TargetTGT, EtsyETSY, and WayfairW to streamline AI shopping from discovery to payment to support. Better yet, Google is baking ads straight into its AI shopping flow, turning free chatbot queries into revenue in a way OpenAI still hasn’t figured out.
The protocol scheme: The Universal Commerce Protocol provides retailers with a single standard way to plug into AI shopping tools, rather than building custom integrations for every platform. Google ads VP Vidhya Srinivasan told CNBC it’s critical to have a standardized system “so we can scale these things.” The protocol will soon enable checkout inside Google’s AI Mode and the Gemini app, starting with Google Wallet and later adding PayPalPYPL and other options. OpenAI’s competing Agentic Commerce Protocol with Stripe was pitched as unlocking access to millions of shoppable stores, but The Information reports it’s still bogged down by product data and payment issues that are slowing adoption.
- McKinsey estimates agentic commerce could be a $3T–$5T global opportunity by 2030, making standardization a race-winning advantage.
- MicrosoftMSFT has already added Copilot checkout using OpenAI’s protocol, saying AI-assisted shoppers make 53% more purchases within 30 minutes.
Rerouting to the Road Less Taken
While Google builds partnerships and OpenAI moves carefully, AmazonAMZN is going full-contact with its Buy for Me feature, using AI agents to complete purchases on other retailers’ sites without explicit permission. That’s sparked backlash from small businesses who found their products listed on Amazon without consent, sometimes with outdated, bot-scraped info. The aggressive move shows Amazon sees AI shopping as a real threat — even as it blocks major AI bots from crawling its own site and cracks down on smaller apps that surface Amazon listings.
- Still, Google’s Direct Offers lets retailers push discounts like 20% off when AI Mode users show buying intent, with the chatbot timing the offer based on the conversation.
- Srinivasan called Google a “matchmaker” in commerce, with ads signaling a shift away from search-style placements to promotions baked into chatbot chats.
Winner takes all: Google CEO Sundar Pichai pitched NRF as cooperation, saying, “We need to work together… if we do it well, it’s an extraordinary expansionary moment.” Translation: the real prize is control of the commerce rails, and Google is betting an open protocol backed by major retailers will outpace OpenAI’s slower rollout. OpenAI’s challenge is getting merchants to commit while Amazon raids listings and Google offers instant reach through existing relationships. Put simply, the hardest part of AI shopping isn’t building the tech — it’s getting retailers to buy in.