AI shopping: Google partners Walmart, Shopify and Wayfair to turn Gemini into in-chat checkout platform; what you need to know
The move, announced on the opening day of the National Retail Federation’s annual convention in New York, positions Gemini as both a virtual shopping assistant and a transaction platform, allowing customers to complete buys without leaving the chat interface.According to Google and Walmart, an instant checkout feature will let users buy products from participating retailers through multiple payment providers directly inside Gemini.
Customers who link their Walmart and Gemini accounts will receive personalised recommendations based on past buys, and items bought through the chatbot can be added to their existing Walmart or Sam’s Club online carts.“The transition from traditional web or app search to agent-led commerce represents the next great evolution in retail,” Walmart’s incoming president and CEO John Furner said in a joint statement with Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.Google said Gemini’s shopping feature can respond to product-related queries — such as recommendations for ski gear — by pulling items from participating retailers’ inventories and facilitating buys within the same conversation.The announcement comes amid intensifying competition among tech giants to dominate AI-powered commerce.
Google, OpenAI and Amazon are all racing to enable seamless shopping experiences that take users from product discovery to checkout within chatbots.OpenAI and Walmart unveiled a similar partnership in October, allowing ChatGPT users to buy most items available on Walmart’s website through instant checkout, excluding fresh food.
Ahead of the holiday shopping season, OpenAI also launched in-chat purchasing for select retailers and Etsy sellers.Salesforce estimates that artificial intelligence influenced $272 billion, or about 20 per cent, of global retail sales during the recent holiday season.Google said the AI-assisted shopping features in Gemini will initially be available only to users in the US, with international expansion planned in the coming months.
