Google announced that "Universal Cart," a feature that lets users collect and monitor products found in Search and the Gemini app, is now available to U.S. users. The company first previewed the tool at Google I/O in May.
Purpose and basic functionality
Universal Cart is designed to simplify online shopping management: users can save items they find, continue browsing, and return later to find their saved products and shopping progress intact. The cart can gather items from multiple retailers, providing a single place to track potential purchases.
Price and availability tracking
Google says the cart can help shoppers keep up with deals and stock changes. The tool can send notifications when a saved product’s price drops or when an item that was out of stock becomes available again.
Payment and promo support
The feature also aims to offer more tailored payment assistance. Google states that Universal Cart can take credit card perks into account when suggesting how to pay and can surface relevant promotional codes to users.
Integration with Universal Commerce Protocol
Checkout is tied to Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard the company introduced earlier this year. UCP is intended to enable AI agents and retailers to work together across different parts of the shopping journey, including checkout.
Context within Google’s AI shopping efforts
Universal Cart joins Google’s broader AI-driven shopping initiatives, such as conversational product discovery available in Search’s AI Mode and the "Let Google Call" tool, which uses an AI agent to contact nearby stores and check item availability.
Competitive landscape
Google is not alone in bringing AI into e-commerce. Companies including Amazon and OpenAI, among others, have added agentic commerce features as businesses explore ways to make chatbots useful beyond answering questions.
