At the National Retail Federation 2026 conference Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a massive shift toward agentic commerce. This new era is defined by AI agents that do not just find products but also execute complex shopping tasks on behalf of users. To lead this transition Google introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol an open source standard developed alongside industry giants like Shopify Walmart Target and Etsy.
The protocol serves as a common language allowing AI agents and retail systems to communicate seamlessly across the entire journey from discovery to final checkout.
The scale of this shift is reflected in Google data showing the company processed over 90 trillion tokens on its retail APIs in December 2025 which represents an 11X increase from the previous year. This surge is driven by users moving from keyword searches to natural conversations in AI Mode.
Unlike traditional search results that return links AI Mode now acts as a personal shopper that can narrow down choices apply loyalty rewards and facilitate native checkout via Google Pay without the user ever leaving the chat interface.
Google also launched Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience which is a unified platform designed to merge shopping and service into one intelligent interface. Available now in preview it allows retailers like Kroger and The Home Depot to deploy Expert Agents that function like knowledgeable sales associates.
These agents can handle multimodal inputs such as photos of a broken part to find a replacement check local inventory and even process goodwill credits for dissatisfied customers within a single interaction.
The last mile of the retail experience is also seeing rapid transformation through Alphabet drone delivery subsidiary Wing. In partnership with Walmart Wing doubled its delivery volume in 2025. Following successful operations in Dallas and Atlanta Wing is expanding to Houston this week with plans to launch in Orlando Tampa and Charlotte shortly.
By the end of 2027 the service aims to cover 270 locations reaching over 40 million Americans with ultra fast delivery for everyday essentials.
