Google has quietly begun letting shoppers in India buy things from Walmart-owned Flipkart without leaving Gemini or AI Mode, as the company pushes its AI products past product discovery and into the checkout.
Users in the test see a "Buy" button on selected Flipkart listings surfaced inside Gemini and Google's AI Mode. Tapping it opens a Flipkart-branded checkout flow in place of the usual product link, according to people familiar with the matter and an experience seen by TechCrunch. The early trial covers a small set of users and products — smartphones, electronics and mobile accessories — while other users still see ordinary listings with no option to purchase. Google plans a broader rollout later in October, one person said, timed to India's festive shopping season, the peak period for the country's e-commerce sales.
Asked about the test, a Google spokesperson would say only that the company is "always testing new features and experiences to help people discover and connect with businesses more easily." Flipkart did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move fits a strategy Google has been assembling all year. It introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) as an open standard for AI agents to interact with retailers across the shopping journey, including checkout, and demonstrated a Google-hosted checkout in Gemini and AI Mode. It has since extended UCP so shoppers can hand items off to a retailer's own site to finish a purchase. Notably, the Flipkart trial appears to use a retailer-branded checkout rather than Google's own; TechCrunch reported it is not clear what technology powers it. Google named Flipkart as an agentic-shopping partner earlier in September but gave no rollout details at the time.
There is also a financial dimension. Google took a minority stake in Flipkart in 2024, investing about $350 million in a round led by Walmart, on top of a technology partnership. Amazon listings appeared alongside Flipkart's in the experience TechCrunch saw, but offered no comparable in-AI purchase button.
The stakes are large. India is the world's second-largest internet market, with more than a billion internet subscribers, and Flipkart and Amazon fight hard for its online shoppers. If assistant-mediated purchasing becomes normal, it would move AI assistants from recommending products to taking a cut of the transaction — a shift Google's rivals, including OpenAI, are also racing toward.
