The new UCP capabilities are gradually rolling out in the U.S., with Australia and Canada expected to follow early next year.

One early adopter offers a preview of the strategy in action. Tapestry, owner of Coach and Kate Spade, used UCP-powered checkout to make its products purchasable across Google Search — including AI Mode — and the Gemini app ahead of the holiday shopping season.

Feed quality still drives results. For all the attention on AI agents, Google says one e-commerce fundamental remains critical: accurate, detailed product data. The numbers back that up. Merchants that adopt Google's core Merchant Center feed best practices see an average 5% increase in conversions the following month, according to the company. During testing with Lululemon, conversational attributes supplied by the retailer were incorporated 50% of the time in relevant product recommendations in AI Mode.

Loyalty data connects to Merchant Center. Retailers can also connect loyalty-program data to Merchant Center so Google can surface member-specific pricing and benefits. Members of Minted's Minted More program, for example, can see their member pricing when searching for holiday cards.

Why it matters. The updates give brands new ways to measure their visibility in AI results, answer product questions inside YouTube ads, and reduce friction between discovery and checkout. They also raise the stakes on product-feed quality, as richer data can influence how products surface and get recommended in AI-powered shopping experiences.

The bigger picture: Google's commerce strategy is expanding beyond getting products indexed and advertised. The company increasingly wants retailers to make their products understandable, discoverable and ultimately purchasable by AI agents.

The holiday shopping season will test whether conversational commerce can move shoppers from discovery to checkout — and whether retailers see enough incremental sales to justify investing in richer product data and agentic-commerce integrations.