Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, and John Furner, incoming CEO of Walmart U.S., outlined how AI is reshaping product discovery, personalisation and purchasing during a keynote session at the National Retail Federation Big Show in New York.

The pair used the session to announce a new AI-led shopping experience that will allow shoppers to purchase products from Walmart and Sam’s Club – Walmart’s members-only wholesale arm – through Google’s AI chatbot, Gemini.

Furner, who will formally step into the CEO role in February, said Google’s AI will be able to surface assortments and pricing in real time, helping shoppers understand availability earlier in the discovery journey. Walmart and Sam’s Club loyalty members will also be able to link their accounts to Gemini, allowing the AI assistant to draw on preferences and shopping history to tailor recommendations.

“The transition from traditional web or app search to agent-led commerce represents the next great evolution in retail. We aren’t just watching the shift, we are driving it,” commented Furner.

“We want to help customers get what they need and want, when and where they want it. Partnering with Google to bring the Walmart experience directly into Gemini is another step toward creating seamless shopping experiences for customers and members that are more intuitive and personal than ever before.”

The new experience will first launch directly within Gemini in the U.S. and internationally thereafter.

Additionally, Google revealed a new AI standard, the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), designed to enable interoperability between retailers’ AI agents and systems.

Pichai said UCP is intended to act as a global standard, while remaining compatible with existing agent frameworks. “It was built to meet the needs of retailers and customers, keeping the full customer relationship front and centre from discovery and decision through to checkout and beyond,” he said.

The protocol’s first live use case will power a native checkout button within Google’s AI Mode and Gemini experiences. In practice, this means shoppers engaging with a large language model could receive product recommendations that can be personalised by the retailer, such as prompts to join a loyalty programme for new customers or targeted offers for existing ones. Purchases can then be completed within the same conversational flow using Google Pay.

Google stressed that the framework is designed to allow retailers to benefit from its AI capabilities while retaining control of the customer relationship. “The retailer is able to shape the relationship at every step as the merchant of record,” Pichai concluded.