The AI platform shift and the opportunity ahead for retail

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Editor's note: Today at the National Retail Federation (NRF), our CEO Sundar Pichai shared how Google is helping retailers grow in the AI platform shift. Announcements included a new protocol for agentic commerce, our new Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience, and service expansions for Wing. The following is an abridged transcript of his remarks.

It's a really dynamic moment for every industry, especially retail. That's due in part to the AI era we're in.

We've been partnering with retailers and helping them grow through technology shifts for more than two decades. And we're excited for a new era of partnership ahead and using our differentiated full stack approach to AI innovation to help.

It's an expansionary moment. Looking at retailers alone, we were processing 8.3 trillion tokens on our API in December 2024. A year later, we were processing over 90 trillion tokens. That's an 11X-plus increase year over year. This shows us how important it is to get this moment right.

Building a new chapter of retail

What we've learned from the last 27 years of working with retailers is that we only succeed together.

Our goal is to build a future of retail where the opportunity space expands for everyone. One where customers can use Google products they love as part of a seamless shopping experience. A future where you are able to build strong relationships with your customers that long outlast any single search or purchase.

AI can help at every step, from discovery and decision to delivery and everything else that goes into creating a full customer experience. Let's focus on discovery and decision.

Improving product discovery on our platforms

Google Search has always been an important starting point for shopping on the web. Since 2021, our Shopping Graph provides information on products in real time. It has over 50 billion product listings, including inventory, prices and reviews. More than 2 billion of those listings are refreshed every single hour. It's information at the speed of retail.

Now, with AI Mode, we're seeing these journeys move from keywords to natural conversations. It's a fundamental shift. While you once had to sort through pages of results, AI can do the hard work of narrowing down exactly what you're most interested in buying.

And last year, we brought the Shopping Graph to the Gemini app, so it's a lot more helpful for people asking shopping-related questions, too.

Introducing a new protocol for agentic commerce

For many people, discovery is the fun part of shopping. Making a decision is where things get harder. As an indecisive shopper myself, I'm looking forward to the day when agents can help me get from discovery to purchase.

At Google, we're busy laying the groundwork for this agentic ecosystem to work well. That includes building a common language for these systems and services to talk to each other.

As a next step we are introducing the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), designed for the era of agentic commerce. It was built to meet the needs of retailers AND customers, keeping the full customer relationship front and center - from the moments of discovery to decision and beyond.

It's open, agnostic, built together with industry leaders Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart, and endorsed by 20+ more.

Importantly, UCP is compatible with existing industry protocols like, Agent2Agent, the Agent Payments Protocol, and Model Context Protocol. It's also built to work across verticals. And it's available starting today.

You might wonder why we're introducing another protocol. The industry needs a protocol that works at global scale and takes into account the nuances of commerce journeys, and this is a critical building block for it.

There's a lot that UCP will enable, and we are starting with native checkout. Soon you'll see a buy button directly on Google surfaces including AI Mode in Search and Gemini.

Here's how it works from a customer POV: So if you're searching for a suitcase from Monos, the protocol will allow the merchant to personalize a "new member" price or offer loyalty enrollment instantly. For returning customers, retailers can provide special offers based on past purchases or suggest helpful additions like packing cubes at checkout. And with a few taps via Google Pay, the purchase is complete without ever leaving the conversation.

Throughout this process, the retailer remains the merchant of record, allowing them to own and shape the customer relationship.

Helping businesses transform in the agentic era

Agents are also fundamentally changing how we run businesses. Agents can work directly with your company and customer data to power engaging shopping experiences from e-commerce sites to the physical store floor.

We're making this even easier for retailers with our new Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience. Specifically built for agentic retail, this platform transforms fragmented search, commerce and service touch points into one seamless journey - whether you need a shopping assistant, a support bot, agentic search or help with merchandising. Partners like The Home Depot and McDonald's are already using these agents to improve customer service.

We're also working with Kroger and other retailers on a new shopping agent that brings the power of AI Mode directly to a retailer's own app. Think of it as a knowledgeable sales associate: you can ask detailed questions and it provides proactive, personalized recommendations.

Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience is available today in preview. It is built on open standards and is already fully integrated with the Universal Commerce Protocol.

Expanding Wing delivery

Delivery is one of the most important parts of the customer journey, yet it's still incredibly expensive and logistically challenging for retailers. It's exactly the kind of hard problem we at Alphabet love to solve, and what Wing is focused on.

Through our partnership, Wing and Walmart doubled deliveries in existing markets in 2025, and today we announced we're expanding: we'll begin deliveries in Houston next week, with Orlando, Tampa, Charlotte and more cities to come soon.

We're excited to help retailers reimagine the shopping experience end-to-end, and look forward to what's to come in 2026.

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