A new era of agentic commerce is here

AI is fundamentally changing retail, moving us into what we call the agentic commerce era, the industry’s most significant transformation yet. We’re shifting beyond simple digital interactions and passive tools to AI agents that are capable of executing complex, multi-step actions autonomously across every consumer touchpoint. For retailers, the opportunity is no longer about just being more efficient; it’s about finding the right customers and making it easy for them to buy. 

At Google, supporting commerce is in our DNA. We’re one of the first places shoppers go to discover new brands and products, and people shop across Google more than a billion times a day. In addition, Google Cloud continues to bring the best of Google to our customers — from improving search experiences with our Knowledge Graph and Shopping Graph, to transforming retail businesses with Gemini Enterprise, our Vertex AI platform, and other AI tools. 

This week at the annual National Retail Federation (NRF) conference, we are sharing exciting updates about what we’re doing to push the boundaries of what’s possible for retail and how it’s already driving real impact.

Google Cloud elevates customer experience for the agentic commerce era 

To help our customers seize the potential of agentic AI, we are unveiling Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience (CX), which is designed to bring shopping and customer service together as a single, intelligent agentic platform. Powered by our most advanced Gemini models, Gemini Enterprise for CX introduces new pre-built and configurable agents that can be deployed in days, not months, capable of managing the entire customer lifecycle — from initial product discovery to autonomous post-purchase resolution. These agents are much more than simple chatbots answering questions: They can independently plan, reason, and act on your behalf, under your supervision. 

Our new Shopping agent uses complex reasoning and multimodal capabilities to act as a proactive digital concierge — processing text, voice, and images to autonomously build carts and execute consented actions. An enhanced food ordering agent allows restaurants like Papa Johns to bring natural language ordering to life across mobile, kiosks, and in-car systems with intelligent upselling and real-time menu synchronization. Furthermore, we’ve introduced Customer Experience Agent Studio and additional support capabilities to Gemini Enterprise for CX, enabling businesses to scale 24/7 active problem solving while giving human representatives AI-driven guidance and real-time quality assurance.

We believe Gemini Enterprise for CX is the next big milestone towards turning passive browsing into active doing — delivering truly personalized shopping experiences that make consumers feel like every interaction was crafted just for them, no matter where they begin their journeys. Kroger, Lowe’s, Papa John’s, and Woolworths are all using Gemini Enterprise for CX today to deliver elevated experiences for their customers.

Retail leaders paving the way: Stories from the front lines

The agentic commerce era isn’t just a concept — it’s already being built. From department stores to leading luxury houses, some of the world’s most iconic brands are using Google Cloud to create fresh takes on retail experiences that reflect how consumers shop today and how they want to shop in the future. To thrive in the agentic commerce era, global retailers must produce high-fidelity, brand-aligned content at a pace that matches shifting consumer trends. 

Authentic Brands Group (Authentic) — owner of more than 50 iconic brands including Juicy Couture, Nautica, and Reebok— is solving this through its newly launched “Authentic Intelligence” platform. By integrating Google Cloud’s most advanced media models, such as Imagen 3 for photorealistic imagery and Veo 3.1 for cinematic video, into its intelligence stack, Authentic’s 15+ specialized AI agents help nearly 600 employees dramatically accelerate workflows. These tools enable the rapid generation of everything from social media assets to high-end campaign concepts while ensuring every piece of content remains true to each brand’s unique DNA. The impact is quantifiable: In early testing, Reebok ad creatives enhanced by Authentic delivered up to 60% higher return on ad spend (ROAS) compared to traditional images. 

The Home Depot announced a major expansion of its partnership with Google Cloud, ushering in a new era of agentic retail powered by Google’s Gemini models. This initiative transforms the customer experience through an advanced Magic Apron agent, which offers conversational project planning localized at the store level for precise aisle-level navigation and product knowledge with support for chat or voice in thousands of languages. The collaboration introduces AI-powered materials list generation for Pro contractors and equips thousands of associates with Gemini Enterprise tools to streamline complex workflows. By moving toward a future where technology anticipates needs before a project even begins, The Home Depot is setting a new industry blueprint for seamless, "AI-first" interconnected retail. 

Gap Inc. plans to use AI tools to reimagine retail across its iconic portfolio of brands, including Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta. The collaboration provides Gap Inc. with a unified, AI-powered platform, which it expects to fuel innovation and greater efficiency across product creation, customer experience, and employee enablement using Google Cloud technologies, such as Gemini, Vertex AI, and BigQuery. 

Honeywell is modernizing the retail aisle through its new Smart Shopping Platform, developed in partnership with Google Cloud and 66degrees. Powered by Gemini, this platform transforms the physical store into an intelligent environment, providing retailers with real-time insights into in-store compliance, inventory accuracy, and associate productivity. By bridging the data gap between the shelf and the back office, Honeywell is helping retailers create an "online-to-offline" experience where shoppers enjoy the same ease of discovery in a physical store that they expect on a mobile app.

The Estée Lauder Companies and Jo Malone London built the future of personalized beauty with their AI Scent Advisor. Developed with Vertex AI and Gemini, this sophisticated conversational agent recreates the brand’s signature in-store consultation for the digital world. By allowing customers to describe scents in their own natural language, the agent maps personal preferences to Jo Malone’s complex olfactory data, providing bespoke, expert-informed recommendations that move a shopper from curiosity to a confident purchase. 

Building tomorrow, today

At Google Cloud, we are helping retailers create a  “superpower” that turns fragmented digital and in-store engagements into a single, effortless experience.

We are committed to providing the infrastructure that gives retailers their most valuable resource back — time — and ensures that every brand, from global icons to digital natives, has the tools to thrive in the next generation of commerce. For more information and demos of these new solutions, visit the Google Booth #5507 at NRF! We have exciting news from across Google too—check out the blog from Ads & Commerce including the new Universal Commerce Protocol and Business Agents, and from Wing on their drone delivery expansion with Walmart.