AI agent shop<\/a> on your behalf? Google hopes your answer will be yes.<\/p>\nIt introduced an \u201cagentic commerce\u201d Universal Cart and hub that works across merchants and services; the company claims it will give your shopping superpowers. Yes, that\u2019s hype. But you will be able to add items to this new shopping cart you\u2019ll see when you search, chat with Google Gemini, watch YouTube or consider a product someone mentions in a Gmail message.\ufeff Once products are in the cart, AI agents proactively search for deals and price drops, and alert you when unavailable items are back in stock. Agents can also notify you if something seems amiss. For example, if you\u2019re a tech hobbyist building your own computer, the agent may flag that the components in your cart are incompatible with one another.<\/p>\n
Ask the Tech Guru\u202f\u202f\u202f<\/p>\n
This intelligent cart also knows the payment cards you have (via Google Wallet). It may recommend using one over another to earn loyalty rewards points, special discounts or other perks. Google is teaming up with a list of retailers, including Amazon, Etsy, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, Shopify, Target, Wayfair and Walmart, to codevelop and\/or support common industry standards for payment infrastructure. But it remains to be seen how comfortable consumers will be having Google, which already knows a lot about our habits, become a kind of personal shopper.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s worth noting that consumers won\u2019t need to check out with Google Pay in the cart; in some instances, they will have the option to complete the purchase at the merchant\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
The Universal Cart will roll out this summer across Search and the Gemini app in the U.S., with YouTube and Gmail to follow.<\/p>\n
But is it safe?<\/p>\n
The chief question likely on your mind, and certainly mine, is how to prevent the agent from going off the rails by paying too much for an item, or buying something you don\u2019t want or need.<\/p>\n
According to Google, protocols are in place to ensure that transactions are secure and comply with your directions on how much you can spend, as well as the brands, products and retailers you are willing to shop at. A digital paper trail will be captured, so if a refund is in order or disputes arise, hopefully the proper merchant will own up and pay you back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\ufeff\u2019s going to be the tricky part. I\u2019m not going to use an agent that I don\u2019t trust,\u201d says Carolina Milanesi, an Atlanta-based tech analyst at Creative Strategies, a market research and consulting firm. \ufeff\u201cI think we get excited about the possibilities the technology brings, but finessing the business model behind it is still going to take time.\ufeff\u201d \ufeff\ufeff<\/p>\n
Nobel Prize winner Sir Demis Hassabis, the CEO and cofounder of Google DeepMind AI research lab, is mindful of the risks and of ensuring that the agents are robust, safe and secure. \u201cThe more powerful these agents get and the more we kind of delegate tasks to them, the more we have to make sure from a cybersecurity standpoint they\u2019re doing exactly what we expect them to do,\u201d Hassabis said onstage at I\/O. \u201cWe can monitor that.\u201d \ufeff<\/p>\n
Your own personal agent<\/p>\n
Google describes Gemini Spark as a personal cloud-based AI agent or digital assistant in Google Gemini that works in the background to take complex tasks off your plate. It will integrate with apps like Gmail, Google Docs and Google Sheets, and sync across computers, iPhones and Android devices. You just tell the agent what you want it to do.<\/p>\n
A simple example: Say you\u2019re planning a block party and need to track not only who\u2019s coming but what they\u2019re bringing. Behind the scenes, Gemini Spark will kick into action and, when appropriate, generate new files. It may create a live RSVP tracker in Sheets and send follow-up email reminders in Gmail to neighbors who haven\u2019t yet responded. If you say you want the party to have a giant bouncy house for kids to play in, Gemini Spark might warn you that homeowner association rules require you to install the house after a certain time or date, which it found in one of your Google Docs.<\/p>\n
Gemini Spark will initially be made available as a beta to \u201ctrusted testers\u201d and subscribers of Google\u2019s $100-per-month\ufeff AI price plan or higher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The agents are taking over Search and Google\u2019s Gemini AI app are increasingly going agentic: that is, relying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[24,405,13881,4665,30698,30701,25,10298,30702,223,132,1429,1507,30699,15690,30697,30700],"class_list":["post-51967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-google","tag-ai","tag-ai-agents","tag-ai-productivity-tools","tag-ai-search-tools","tag-ai-shopping-assistants","tag-ai-powered-search","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-digital-assistants","tag-future-of-search","tag-generative-ai","tag-google","tag-google-ai","tag-google-search","tag-google-technology","tag-google-updates","tag-personalized-search","tag-search-innovation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}