At the recently concluded NRF 2026, one message came through clearly:
The future of ecommerce is agent-driven.
Retail is entering a phase where AI agents don’t just assist shoppers, they orchestrate entire commerce journeys. Speaking at NRF, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, highlighted why the retail industry urgently needs a universal, scalable approach to AI-powered commerce, one that understands the nuances of complex ecommerce workflows.
Universal Commerce Protocol: A New Foundation for AI in Ecommerce
One of the most significant announcements was the introduction of Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open, platform-agnostic standard designed to create a common language between AI agents and ecommerce services.
Developed in collaboration with partners like Walmart, Target, and Shopify, UCP enables seamless ecommerce experiences from product discovery to checkout, while allowing retailers to retain ownership of their customer relationships.
This is a major step toward interoperable, agent-powered ecommerce solutions at global scale.
Know more at https://developers.googleblog.com/under-the-hood-universal-commerce-protocol-ucp/
From Keyword Search to Agentic Retail Experiences
Retail is rapidly shifting from keyword-based search to natural, goal-driven conversations.
Instead of typing queries, customers can now express intent:
“Plan breakfast for five kids”, and AI agents handle the rest.
Powered by agentic AI in retail, these agents understand context, preferences, and constraints to deliver personalized shopping journeys across platforms like Google Gemini, fundamentally changing ecommerce customer experience.
Google’s Full-Stack AI Strategy for Retail
Pichai also emphasized Google’s full-stack AI approach, spanning:
- Custom TPUs and high-performance infrastructure
- Advanced models like Gemini
- Developer-friendly AI APIs
This strategy is enabling massive scale. Retailers processed 8.3 trillion tokens using Google AI APIs in 2024, and are now processing over 90 trillion tokens, an 11x year-over-year increase. This growth highlights how deeply AI-driven workflow automation for ecommerce is being adopted across the industry.
Drone Delivery Moves Closer to Mainstream
Another notable innovation discussed was the expansion of Wing, Alphabet’s drone delivery service. Through an extended partnership with Walmart, Wing is now scaling to 270 locations across the U.S., enabling ultra-fast, last-mile delivery for millions of customers.
Drone delivery is no longer experimental, it’s becoming a practical component of modern ecommerce solutions.
Responsible, Collaborative AI Innovation
Beyond technology, Pichai stressed the importance of being bold and responsible with AI. Google’s approach focuses on embedding safety controls, watermarking, and governance, while ensuring retailers remain the merchant of record and the primary owners of customer trust.
The message was clear: AI should enhance retailer–customer relationships, not replace them.
AI in ecommerce is no longer about incremental upgrades.
It’s about rebuilding commerce around intelligence, intent, and agents.
References:
https://developers.google.com/merchant/ucp