Overview
- Announced at NRF in New York, Sundar Pichai and incoming Walmart CEO John Furner unveiled a partnership to let shoppers discover and buy Walmart and Sam’s Club items within Google’s Gemini.
- Linked Walmart accounts will enable personalized recommendations based on purchase history, and items bought via Gemini can merge with existing Walmart or Sam’s Club online carts.
- Google introduced the open Universal Commerce Protocol, co-developed with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart, enabling a buy button on AI Mode in Search and in Gemini with checkout completed via Google Pay.
- The Gemini shopping experience starts in the U.S. with initial exclusions for fresh, frozen and marketplace items, and broader category and international expansion is planned with timing not yet disclosed.
- Google’s Wing delivery network is expanding with Walmart, starting deliveries in Houston next week and adding Orlando, Tampa and Charlotte, growing to 270 sites reaching an estimated 40 million people.