When Google announced that shoppers could complete purchases directly in AI Mode, the focus was on convenience and technical capability. A retailer who emailed Search Engine Journal raised different questions about what gets lost when the transaction moves to Google’s surfaces.
The retailer cited concerns that customers never visit the store, see accessory recommendations from other sellers, and lose brand connection when making purchases on Google.
The concern shows a tradeoff in Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol. Retailers gain potential access to customers at the moment of purchase intent. However, they may lose some of the brand environment, discovery patterns, and relationship-building that occur when shoppers visit owned sites.
What Changes When Checkout Leaves Your Site
The change affects several parts of how retailers interact with customers.
Cross-selling
Cross-selling may change shape. A customer buying a camera on your site might see lens recommendations, memory cards, or cases based on your merchandising strategy.
Google says it plans to add capabilities like discovering related products, applying loyalty rewards, and powering custom shopping experiences on Google, but it hasn’t detailed reporting, fees, or data-sharing for AI Mode checkout.
If loyalty rewards, saved preferences, and checkout work more smoothly on Google surfaces, some shoppers may prefer that experience even if retailers have less control over it. Whether that tradeoff benefits retailers depends on details Google hasn’t disclosed yet.
Brand Connection
Brand storytelling can get compressed into whatever product data feeds into Google’s systems. Retailers invest in site design, content, and navigation to communicate what makes them different. That investment may not fully transfer when the interaction happens in AI Mode’s standardized interface.
The customer relationship dynamics change. Retailers traditionally owned the full transaction flow: discovery, consideration, purchase, and post-purchase communication. For orders completed inside AI Mode, Google would host more of the discovery and checkout experience on its own surfaces, while retailers remain the seller of record.
The degree to which retailers can access customer journey data that normally informs merchandising and marketing is unknown.
The Amazon Parallel
The situation resembles dynamics that already exist with Amazon marketplace sellers. Third-party sellers on Amazon get access to massive customer traffic. Marketplace sellers often accept less control over the customer experience and limited access to relationship signals compared with selling on their own sites.
Google’s protocol creates similar dynamics but extends them across the open web rather than within a single marketplace. Google positions UCP as an open standard, in contrast to Amazon’s closed marketplace model. The key difference: Amazon requires sellers to list products on its platform. UCP lets Google insert checkout capabilities into AI Mode while products technically remain on participating retailers’ inventory systems.
Whether that distinction leads to more data for retailers or a different platform dependency depends on reporting and data-sharing details Google hasn’t specified.
When It Makes Sense, When It Doesn’t
Some retail business models rely heavily on price, convenience, and fulfillment speed. For these retailers, losing the site visit may matter less if UCP delivers customers when they’re ready to buy.
Other retailers compete on curation, brand experience, and discovery. A customer visiting a specialty outdoor gear retailer expects to explore complementary products, read buying guides, and engage with brand content. Moving more of the purchase flow onto Google surfaces could reduce how much of that value proposition happens on a retailer’s site.
The calculation also depends on customer acquisition costs. For example, if you’re paying $30 to acquire a customer through Google Ads and they buy a $50 product on your site, the unit economics work when you can cross-sell or build long-term relationship value. If checkout happens on Google’s surface and you can’t cross-sell or retarget, the same acquisition cost may not be worth it.
What’s Known Versus What’s Speculation
Google said eligible U.S. retailers will be able to participate in UCP checkout through AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app. Google says retailers remain the seller of record and can customize the integration.
A separate Google Developers blog post explains that merchants remain the Merchant of Record and highlights an embedded option for a customized checkout experience. But the announcement didn’t detail the data-sharing arrangement, fee structure, or the funnel-level reporting retailers will receive for AI Mode checkout events.
The protocol is described as “open,” but adoption requirements, integration complexity, and whether non-Google AI systems can use it are unclear.
Google’s Business Agent feature demonstrates one use of the new protocol: branded AI chat appears in Search results for participating retailers, but the interaction occurs on Google’s platform.
Some analysts frame the change as existential, using terms like “extinction event” for certain retail models. That’s based on assumptions about adoption rates, customer behavior, and competitive dynamics that haven’t played out yet.
The more measured question retailers are asking: Does this create fragmentation where they need to optimize for multiple checkout flows, or consolidation where Google becomes the dominant transaction layer for product searches?
Questions Without Clear Answers
Three implementation details will likely determine how disruptive AI Mode checkout becomes for retailers:
- Merchant Center control: whether participation is explicitly opt-in and retailers can limit checkout to specific products or categories.
- Measurement: what reporting retailers get for actions on Google surfaces and whether AI Mode orders can be distinguished from standard site conversions.
- Customer and journey data: what signals, if any, come back to retailers to support lifecycle marketing and merchandising decisions.
Google has outlined the direction for UCP but hasn’t detailed these operational components.
Looking Ahead
Google said UCP checkout will roll out to eligible U.S. retailers soon, but hasn’t provided specific timing. Business Agent, which puts branded AI chat on Search results, went live Jan. 12.
Retailers questioning the tradeoffs between visibility and control face a pattern that’s played out before with Amazon, Google Shopping, and social commerce. Early participants gain access to new traffic sources but accept platform rules they don’t control. Late adopters may find themselves at a disadvantage.
The core question several retailers have raised is: Can they maintain the brand differentiation and relationship-building that justified creating owned channels when the transaction occurs on someone else’s platform?
The protocol is too new to know yet.
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