Google Lets Indian Shoppers Buy From Flipkart Inside Gemini

Google is testing direct purchases from Walmart-owned Flipkart inside Gemini and AI Mode in India, marking the search giant's first move from AI-powered product discovery into actual transactions.

Users in the test see a "Buy" button on select Flipkart product listings within Gemini and Google's AI Mode, according to people familiar with the matter and an experience seen by TechCrunch. Tapping the button takes them directly to a Flipkart checkout flow without leaving the AI interface.

The test covers a narrow slice of inventory. It is limited to some users and a small selection of products, including smartphones, electronics, and mobile accessories, the people said. Other users still see regular Flipkart product listings in Gemini and AI Mode without the option to buy directly from the AI interface.

The timing is deliberate. Google plans to roll out the experience more broadly later in October, ahead of India's festive shopping season, one of the people said. That period is when e-commerce companies deploy some of their biggest sales and promotions of the year.

A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch the company is "always testing new features and experiences to help people discover and connect with businesses more easily." The company regularly runs experiments and has no further details to share, the spokesperson added. Flipkart did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

The test positions Google in a race with rivals including OpenAI, which are also adding commerce capabilities to their AI offerings. The shared ambition: move beyond answering shopping queries and recommending products to playing a direct role in online purchases.

Google has been building the underlying technology for some time. Earlier this year it introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard designed to let AI agents interact with retailers across the shopping journey, including checkout. Google said at the time that the technology would allow shoppers to buy eligible products through Gemini and AI Mode using a Google-hosted checkout experience. The company has since expanded UCP with other capabilities, including letting shoppers transfer items to a retailer's site to complete a purchase.

The Flipkart test, however, appears to follow a different technical path. The experience seen by TechCrunch brings up a Flipkart-branded checkout flow when a user taps the Buy button, not the Google-hosted checkout Google demonstrated earlier. It is not clear what technology powers the test.

Earlier this month, Google said Flipkart was among the merchants partnering with it to bring what it calls "agentic" shopping experiences to consumers in India, but it had not disclosed details of the test or its rollout timeline.

The commercial relationship between the two companies runs deeper than this experiment. Google invested about $350 million in Flipkart in 2024 as part of a funding round led by Walmart, taking a minority stake in the e-commerce company.

India is the world's second-largest internet market, with more than a billion internet subscribers, and Flipkart and Amazon compete fiercely for those online shoppers. For now, the Buy option does not extend across all retailers surfaced by Google's AI services. In the experience seen by TechCrunch, listings from rivals including Amazon appeared alongside Flipkart products but did not offer direct purchase through the AI interface.

If the October rollout proceeds as planned, Google will enter India's most commercially charged shopping season with an AI checkout proposition that neither Flipkart's fiercest rival nor, so far, OpenAI can match at scale.