Reference: Google announcement on agentic commerce
On January 11, Google announced a new wave of products that signal a meaningful shift toward agentic commerce – where AI systems don’t just recommend products, but actively complete transactions on behalf of users.
What Google Announced
Some of the key releases include:
✨ Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) – allowing you to checkout within AI Mode and Gemini
🤖 Business Agent – build AI-driven chatbots in your brand tone of voice directly into Google
📈 New tools for discovery & conversion – updated Merchant Center data attributes for conversational discoverability + direct offers in AI Mode to deliver targeted discounts at the moment of intent
What Does This Mean for Websites?
The answer is obviously going to be nuanced.
For commodity purchases and repeat buys, agentic commerce may be a clear winner. “Buy me more paper towels” may not need a landing page, or an abandoned cart email sequence. It needs structured data and an API endpoint.For complex purchases – those requiring research, trust-building, and considered decisions – websites and brand experience still have a role. Brand experiences that can’t be flattened into structured data. Categories where the journey itself is part of the product. High-consideration purchases where customers want to explore.
The real shift is that websites may become optional for a growing share of transactions. That’s still seismic for any business model built on owning the customer journey from first click to final checkout.
“Open” Doesn’t Mean Neutral
UCP is open-source. But Google built the only implementation. Google Pay is the default checkout. Google’s AI surfaces such as AI Mode and Gemini are where this goes live first.
The trade retailers are being offered: higher conversion rates and reduced cart abandonment in exchange for being one step further from the customer.
Google positions this as “retailers remain the merchant of record,” but every layer of abstraction between you and your customer is a layer of dependency in Google infrastructure.
A silver lining here, though: this pressure may finally push brands to invest more in owning the customer relationship – CRM, loyalty programmes, community building, white-glove service, and email that people actually want to read.
The retailers who treat UCP as a channel rather than the channel may be better positioned if agentic shopping becomes the norm and the power dynamics inevitably shift.
What This Means for SEO
The click-through crisis has been an ongoing battle and predates UCP, but UCP accelerates it even further. When users can complete transactions without ever visiting your site, “traffic” may stop being a meaningful metric for an increasing share of your potential revenue.Visibility no longer equals traffic. You can rank first and still see declining sessions year over year. The metrics that mattered for two decades are breaking. Your SEO might be working perfectly but you’re just not getting credit for it because the click never happens.
Ranking vs Reasoning
Traditional SEO was about ranking on a page. Agentic SEO is about being selected in a reasoning process. AI systems cite original insight, unique data, and trusted sources and tend to stay away from repackaged information as they can do that themselves.
If you’re not adding something an AI can’t synthesise on its own, you risk becoming invisible.
Data Matters More Than Design
Agents don’t browse, they parse. Schema markup, product feeds, inventory signals, trust markers – this is becoming the primary optimisation stack. In agentic search, your site’s visual design doesn’t matter to an agent deciding which product to recommend.
The Scope Is Widening
Wherever buyers discover, you need presence. This means search optimisation across every platform where your buyers look for answers: YouTube, Reddit, TikTok, AI platforms, content partnerships, and of course traditional search in Google.
Attribution Needs Revisiting
If influence no longer looks like clicks, how do you credit SEO work? The industry hasn’t solved this yet.
Brand share of search? Direct traffic correlation? We now need to stop simply asking “what got the click?” and start asking “what shaped the decision?”
Key Highlights for Paid Search
Paid search seems to be moving from pay to win the click
to pay to win the decision
,
but it’s still unclear how (or if) Google Ads will report and attribute these AI Mode journeys in a clean way yet.
Product Data Becomes the New Landing Page
The biggest lever is still the same, just more important: completeness of information.
Google is introducing new Merchant Center attributes (e.g., answers to common product questions, compatible accessories, substitutes, and more). Descriptions and context-rich content still matter, but the mindset shifts: humans browse while agents parse.
The competitive advantage becomes: can Google clearly understand what this product is, who it’s for, and why it’s the right choice?
Discount War Potential
With “Direct Offers”, will brands that discount more get prioritised? Unclear.
But if Google is moving toward agentic, AI-led shopping, the smarter play is value design, not just price:
shipping perks, bundles, exclusives, loyalty, service, authenticity, availability.
This also gives the system more signals on who to target and when. It’s easy to imagine Google pairing this with existing tools (like automated discounts) to make offers more dynamic over time.
Measurement Will Need to Change
If more purchases happen with fewer site visits:
— Visibility won’t always equal sessions
— Influence won’t always equal a click
Clients should keep measurement strong, but broaden how success is judged:
incrementality testing, MMM where appropriate, and stronger first-party data.
The Importance of Managing a Good CRM
Google says retailers remain the seller of record, and plans to add capabilities like loyalty rewards in the coming months. Directionally, orders should still land in the retailer’s systems, but we should expect attribution and data flows to look different as these integrations mature.
What AU Businesses Can Do Now
— Treat Merchant Center as a performance product
— Make products “answerable”
— Build an offer strategy that protects margin
— Prepare for attribution that is less click-to-site-dependent
Bottom Line
Nothing here replaces the fundamentals, it amplifies them.
The brands that win will be the ones with the strongest product signals, the easiest path to purchase, and the highest trust.
The biggest change is we’ll need to get better at measuring impact even when the journey doesn’t look like click, website, buy
.
