Boost your holiday sales with these agentic commerce updates

Google is rolling out new AI-driven features to assist retailers in capturing holiday shopper attention during the gift-buying season. Businesses can now access performance insights in Merchant Center to track how their products appear in AI searches, enabling them to refine visibility. The updates also include conversational attributes and loyalty data to enhance product feed accuracy and relevance for shoppers. These tools aim to simplify the path from product discovery to purchase for consumers.

To help retailers understand their performance on AI surfaces, Google has expanded AI performance insights in Merchant Center to Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, and the U.S. This feature allows businesses to compare their share of voice with competitors across AI Mode and AI Overviews, providing actionable data to improve discoverability. The insights help retailers identify gaps and opportunities in how shoppers find their products through conversational experiences.

Shoppers can now receive tailored support directly within YouTube ads through the Business Agent for YouTube ads beta in the U.S. Eligible retailers can embed Business Agent, enabling viewers to ask product questions and receive guidance without leaving the platform. This feature builds on the success of Business Agent in Search, which has already helped brands convert shopper curiosity into confident purchasing decisions during research phases.

Google is also enhancing the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) integration hub in Merchant Center to streamline agentic commerce at scale. The updates include capabilities like cart transfer to merchant sites and enhanced checkout flow testing, with analytics rolling out soon. These changes are gradually launching in the U.S., followed by Australia and Canada early next year, supporting retailers in efficiently integrating UCP-powered checkout across Google surfaces.