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Google wants to own your entire shopping journey with Universal Cart and agent-led payments

https://media.thenextweb.com/2026/05/google-universal-cart-agent-payments-shopping-io-2026.avif

TL;DR

Google announced Universal Cart at I/O 2026, an AI-powered shopping hub that lets users add products from Search, Gemini, YouTube, and Gmail into a single persistent cart with deal tracking and compatibility checks. It also updated its Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) to let AI agents make purchases autonomously, and is expanding its Universal Commerce Protocol to new countries and verticals.

Google has unveiled Universal Cart, an AI-powered shopping hub announced at I/O 2026 that lets users add products from across its ecosystem, Search, Gemini, YouTube, and Gmail, into a single persistent cart. The feature, rolling out in the US today, represents the company’s most ambitious bid yet to become the default middleman in online commerce.

Universal Cart is not just a place to stash products. Powered by Gemini, it actively monitors price drops, surfaces price history, sends back-in-stock alerts, and even runs AI compatibility checks. Google’s demo highlighted...

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