Google's Universal Cart Aims to Track Online Shopping Across the Web

At its I/O event on Tuesday, Google unveiled Universal Cart, a centralized hub designed to manage all your shopping in one place. The company also shared updates to its Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) and previewed plans to integrate the technology into Google products in the coming months, allowing users to authorize AI agents to handle payments for them.

These announcements highlight Google's ambition to evolve AI assistants from passive tools that offer suggestions into active participants in online commerce. By creating a unified shopping system and the infrastructure for autonomous agent-driven purchases, Google aims to play a larger role in the entire shopping journey, potentially reshaping the dynamic between consumers and competing merchants.

With Universal Cart, users can save products they're interested in from anywhere across Google's ecosystem—whether they're searching the web, chatting with Gemini, watching YouTube, or checking Gmail. Once items are added, the cart tracks deals, monitors price drops, provides price history insights, and sends alerts when out-of-stock items become available again.

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The feature is built on a key insight Google understands well: most people shop across multiple devices, various retailers, and over extended periods of time.

The cart also leverages AI to assist with smarter shopping decisions. For instance, if you're assembling your first custom PC, you can add components from different merchants into one cart. Google can then flag potential compatibility issues—like a processor that won't work with your chosen motherboard—and suggest suitable alternatives.

For frequent travelers or those looking to maximize rewards, the feature can uncover hidden savings and help you get more value from your points, as it's integrated with Google Wallet.

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Thanks to Google's open-standard Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), users can either check out directly through Google with participating merchants or transfer their cart items to a merchant's site to complete the purchase there.

Universal Cart is launching in the U.S. starting today and will arrive in the Gemini app this summer, with YouTube and Gmail integration to follow, according to Google.

Google also announced that UCP is expanding to support more categories, such as hotels and local food delivery services. UCP-powered experiences will roll out beyond the U.S. to Canada and Australia in the coming months, with the U.K. to follow later.

A potentially more significant announcement for the commerce industry is AP2, Google's protocol that allows AI agents to securely make payments on a user's behalf within predefined limits. At I/O, Google detailed the controls users can set, including specifying preferred brands and products, along with a spending cap. When these conditions are met, the agent can proceed with the purchase automatically.

Image Credits:Sarah Perez/TechCrunch

Google states it will integrate AP2 into its own products in the coming months. This move would give Google direct insight into what consumers discover, consider, and ultimately buy—a level of commercial influence that retailers and payment processors are likely to monitor closely.

Technically, AP2 establishes a transparent, verifiable link between the user, the merchant, and the payment processor, with encryption safeguarding user data throughout the transaction. The protocol also includes tamper-proof digital records to ensure the agent is always acting on the user's instructions, along with a permanent audit trail that both buyers and sellers can reference for returns or dispute resolution.