Google’s new Universal Cart wants to follow your entire shopping journey across the internet

Key points

• At Google I/O on Tuesday, Google introduced Universal Cart, its agentic hub for managing shopping in one place.
• The tech giant also announced updates to its Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) and teased that it would bring the technology to Google products in the coming months, enabling users to authorize agents to make payments on their behalf.
• The announcements signal Google’s push to turn AI assistants from passive recommendation tools into active participants in online commerce.
• By launching a centralized shopping system and building infrastructure that lets software agents complete purchases autonomously, the company is positioning itself to control more of the entire shopping journey, and potentially the relationship between consumers and the merchants competing for their attention.
• With Universal Cart, users can add products they’re considering from anywhere on Google — while browsing Search, chatting with Gemini, watching YouTube, or reading Gmail.