Small business takeaway:
- Google’s AI commerce tools, including conversational search, instant checkout, and brand-customized virtual assistants, signal a shift toward seamless, personalized shopping experiences. For small businesses, this evolution offers a pathway to compete with larger players by enhancing customer engagement, streamlining transactions, and leveraging data-driven insights—all while maintaining control over customer relationships and brand identity.
Tech giant Google rocked the retail world in January when it announced it was ready to roll out AI tools that would change how consumers shop, and merchants sell.
Those tools include AI agents that are smart enough to let shoppers make one-click purchases directly from an AI search recommendation; or that can chat with customers, make a list of everything needed to host a five-year-old’s birthday party, and then order every item on the list; or that can offer discounts and deals to shoppers at the exact moment when it might convince them to buy.
Google partnered with some of the country’s biggest retailers, including Walmart, Target, Wayfair, and Etsy, and shopping platform Shopify, to develop these tools, and those partners are among the first to implement them.
But, as Courtney Rose, Vice President, Retail, at Google, told CO—, small businesses, even a merchant with a single store, will soon also be able to take advantage of these AI tools.
‘A roadmap for the future of commerce’
“This is the debut of our roadmap, and how we’re thinking about the future of commerce,” Rose said. “We really believe in this world of agentic commerce that works for everyone. So, it’s real tools that are helpful for shoppers and helpful for retailers of all sizes,” she said.
Google expects to begin making the new AI tools available to merchants of all sizes within the coming months, Rose said.
The good news for small businesses, Rose said, is they have time to educate themselves about what’s on the horizon, but don’t have to worry that they need to make immediate decisions about using the advanced tools.
Because the new tools won’t be rolled out to smaller merchants for some months, “you can take a breath and know that you’re not necessarily missing out on something today if you’re not implementing all this,” she said.
Leveraging new tech tools can boost the bottom line for SMBs
The Empowering Small Business report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce found that small businesses are eager to adopt these new AI tools, with 84% planning to increase their use of technology platforms.
Tech adoption is good for small businesses’ bottom lines, according to the report. “Small businesses that leverage technology platforms effectively are more likely to have experienced growth in sales and profits,” while also increasing their workforce, the report states.
A key way that Google currently interacts with small businesses is with its Merchant Center, a free digital dashboard that lets businesses upload information about their products and inventory so that merchandise can be discovered in Google Search and other Google surfaces, such as Shopping, Maps, and YouTube.
Small merchants using Merchant Center and Google Ads can expect to see notifications about the new AI tools as they’re rolled out.
The four key AI tools that will be rolled out soon to merchants of all sizes will enable expanded use of conversational attributes in product descriptions; instant checkout and purchase from AI search and chat; business agents that serve as virtual sales assistants; and direct offers.
[Read more: How the New Era of AI Will Impact Consumer-Driven Companies Large and Small in 2026]
The Empowering Small Business report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce found that small businesses are eager to adopt these new AI tools, with 84% planning to increase their use of technology platforms.
Conversational attributes: Training search to understand long, complex exchanges
One of the first areas where small merchants are likely to see changes is improved product discovery. Google is expanding the amount and kind of data merchants can load into the Merchant Center to make searches more responsive to the way consumers seek out product information today.
“Search is becoming a lot more conversational,” Rose said. “You used to search like a robot – for example typing in ‘car part needed,” she said. Now consumers are asking much more complex questions, such as “’My car broke down today. I don’t know what’s happening. Maybe I need this, can you help me?’” she said.
Search today is more of a free-flowing conversation, Rose said, and Google is making it possible for merchants to add more in-depth product descriptions to Merchant Center listings. The goal is to provide descriptions that are similar to how someone would describe a product in conversation with another person.
“The better your [Merchant Center] feed, the better your ability to be discoverable on Google,” Rose said.
Google piloted the ability to add conversational attributes with select merchants and plans to make it generally available soon.
Brands and retailers will have the ability to add details such as answers to common product questions from shoppers, or information about accessories and add-ons that are compatible with a product.
Agentic checkout via AI search coming to SMBs: Shoppers can go from chat to checkout in an instant
In January, Google announced that it had developed a Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) that creates a common language that retailers, consumers, and payment providers can use to allow AI agents and business systems to speak to each other.
That protocol will allow shoppers to buy products they discover in Google Search or Google’s AI platform, Gemini, directly from the search results.
At the end of March, Google announced that Gap will be the first major fashion brand to offer instant checkout on Gemini.
When Gemini suggests a Gap product to a shopper searching for information about jeans or other clothing items, they’ll be able to make a purchase directly from Gemini, without having to go through the Gap website.
Google is launching agentic checkout with the major retailers it worked with to develop the UCP, but that ability will soon expand to small brands and merchants, Rose said.
Google will provide small businesses with a playbook that will guide them through the process of enabling the UCP and activating agentic checkout, she said.
One advantage Google has in making checkout from search available to small merchants is that businesses that are using Google Merchant Center in order to be discovered in Google Search will already be enabled for the new protocol, Ricardo Belmar, Retail Analyst and Host of The Retail Razor podcast, said in a webinar about new AI breakthroughs.
“If you’re already in Merchant Center, you’re halfway there,” Belmar said.
Google’s ‘Business Agent’: A virtual sales assistant that can speak in a brand’s voice
The new Business Agent AI tool, Rose explained, will give merchants and brands a virtual sales associate that can chat with consumers in Google Search or Gemini.
The Business Agent will be able to answer detailed questions about products, but more importantly, Rose said, “it can do it in the brand’s voice” and be customized for specific merchants.
Brands and retailers using the Merchant Center will be able to customize their business agent so that the brand’s logo, signature colors, visual design, and brand messages are used when talking to consumers.
“Obviously, that is great for brands as a way to differentiate yourself, and to build that relationship with the customer as well,” Rose said.
Direct offers: Reaching shoppers at the exact moment when they are most likely to buy
The fourth new AI tool, Direct Offers, has been launched as a pilot in Google Ads. It allows Google advertisers to present exclusive offers to those shoppers using AI search who are most likely to buy.
“It’s a way to get in at exactly the right moment, based on the signals we have of the [shopper’s] intent,” Rose said. “We know the offer you are willing to give them, and we are able to match that up in the moment to deliver it to the user,” she said.
Direct Offers is being tested with a handful of advertisers currently, with plans to roll it out more widely in coming months, Rose said.
Merchants — not Google — will own the relationship with the customer
One important point for small businesses to understand is that they will continue to own the relationship with the customer, and all the data surrounding it, even as they begin using tools like agentic checkout or direct offers, Rose said.
“Google does not want to be a merchant, we do not want to be a retailer, we don’t want to be a marketplace. We are here truly to connect shoppers to businesses,” she said. “That’s how we’ve operated for a very long time and that is also what will guide us in the agentic era as well.”
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