Agentic shopping is an emerging retail paradigm where AI-powered agents, built on models like Google Gemini and fueled by real-time product data from the Google Shopping Graph, act on behalf of the shopper to research, recommend, and even complete purchases. Recent updates have supercharged these capabilities, blending intuitive AI guidance with up-to-the-minute inventory and pricing, while offering next-generation experiences such as agentic checkout, personalized inspiration, and virtual try-on solutions.
What Is Agentic Shopping?
Agentic shopping refers to the use of intelligent AI agents that autonomously assist consumers throughout their entire shopping journey, beyond simple recommendations. These agents analyze user preferences, compare products, track prices, and, with user approval, can fill out forms and execute secure transactions—all with minimal manual involvement from the shopper. The term “agentic” highlights the agent’s ability to act proactively, not just reactively, in seeking the shopper’s best interests.
The Role of Google Gemini and Shopping Graph
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Google Gemini is Google’s newest large language model, optimized for multi-modal reasoning and personalized agents that deeply understand complex intent and context. Gemini powers the AI Mode shopping experiences, driving intuitive, visual, and dialog-based interactions in search, retail, and e-commerce.
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Google Shopping Graph is a dynamic, ever-refreshing database of over 50 billion product listings, gathered from merchants worldwide. Its real-time structure ensures that every product attribute—price, availability, reviews, images, shipping details—is up-to-date, so AI agents can provide hyper-relevant, trustworthy recommendations at scale.
Recent New Features
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AI Mode Shopping Experience: AI Mode now synthesizes data from Gemini and Shopping Graph to deliver personalized inspiration panels, multi-faceted guidance, and real-time narrowing of product choices based on evolving shopper needs (like suggesting a waterproof travel bag for a rainy-weather trip).
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Agentic Checkout: Google’s AI can now handle checkout tasks—tracking price drops, auto-adding items to carts at the optimal moment, filling payment information securely via Google Pay, and notifying or acting for the shopper when their criteria are met (with human consent at every step).
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Virtual Try-On and Visual Discovery: Users can leverage GenAI-powered virtual try-ons, seeing clothes on diverse models with various body types and skin tones, or browse immersive, full-screen AI shopping panels with dynamic filters, instant product comparisons, and merchant trust badges.
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Quick Price and Inventory Refresh: With listings updating billions of times per hour, Google’s ecosystem ensures high accuracy on what’s in stock, who sells it, and at what price, letting AI make smarter decisions for agentic shopping tasks.
Why Agentic Shopping Matters for Retailers
Agentic commerce marks a shift where retailers must optimize product data for “agentic discovery,” ensuring structured, detailed, and trustworthy listings. This enables agents and users alike to find, consider, and act on products seamlessly. Retailers benefit by facilitating frictionless paths to purchase for consumers who increasingly expect hands-off, personalized, and AI-enhanced shopping journeys.
