Google has been letting selected Gemini users in India shop directly at Flipkart on a trial basis since September 26, 2026. A new buy button takes them straight to the online retailer’s Flipkart-branded checkout, initially only for smartphones, electronics, and accessories. A broader launch is planned for October ahead of India’s festival season.
Button leads straight to the Flipkart checkout
As first reported by TechCrunch, the buy button currently appears only on a small selection of products in Gemini and the AI Mode search feature. When test users tap it, they are taken directly to Flipkart’s checkout without leaving the Google app or having to search for the item again. Only smartphones, other electronics, and mobile accessories are covered for now; Google has not named other product categories for the test phase. A company spokesperson said only that it is “always testing new features to make it easier for people to connect with businesses.” Google gave no fixed date for the larger October rollout, but pointed to the upcoming festival season around Diwali, when Indian households traditionally make a large share of their electronics purchases. Google has held a stake of around $350 million in Flipkart since 2024; the retailer is majority-owned by US retail giant Walmart.
An open standard is meant to govern purchases made via AI chats
The technical basis for the test is the Universal Commerce Protocol, an open standard Google introduced in January 2026. It is meant to define how AI applications such as Gemini and Google Search communicate with merchants’ systems, from product discovery through the cart to the actual payment. It was co-developed by companies including Shopify, Etsy, Target, and Walmart. More than 20 other companies also back it, among them payment providers Mastercard and Stripe as well as European fashion retailer Zalando. Google has a lot riding on the push: the Gemini assistant passed more than one billion monthly users for the first time in August, a reach that is becoming increasingly attractive to merchants. Whether that reach also converts into actual purchases rather than mere product recommendations is the central question on which a rival has already stumbled.
OpenAI’s earlier attempt failed on weak usage
OpenAI had already launched Instant Checkout in September 2025, a purchase flow fully built into ChatGPT, starting with Etsy sellers and an announced Shopify integration for more than a million stores. The service fell far short of expectations, however: as CNBC reported, fewer than 15 of Shopify’s millions of merchants ever went live with the feature. Walmart also measured a conversion rate nearly three times worse than a plain click-through to its own site – a figure that has not been independently verified. OpenAI retired Instant Checkout in March 2026 and shifted its focus back to plain product recommendations, leaving the actual purchase on the merchant’s own site again. The company has since experimented with other revenue sources, such as sponsored agents in ChatGPT, but has so far held off on a second attempt at direct checkout.
What will matter is whether Google’s detour through a Flipkart-branded partner checkout solves the underlying problem that sank OpenAI’s fully integrated checkout: merchants’ trust in keeping control over the actual sale. If Google keeps to its announced October timeline, India’s festival season will be the first real stress test for this approach at scale – with consequences for whether AI assistants become a serious sales channel for merchants worldwide.
