Google Tests Buying From Flipkart Directly Inside Gemini and AI Mode

Google has begun testing a way for shoppers in India to buy select Flipkart products through Gemini and AI Mode, pushing its AI products beyond discovery and recommendations toward completing actual transactions. Some users are seeing a “Buy” option on Flipkart listings that opens a Flipkart-branded checkout flow while keeping the purchase journey inside the AI experience.

The experiment is currently limited to a small group of users and a narrow selection of products, including smartphones, electronics and mobile accessories. Users outside the test can still see Flipkart products in Gemini and AI Mode but cannot purchase them through the new flow. TechCrunch reports that Google plans a wider rollout later in October, ahead of India’s important festive shopping season.

The test represents a significant shift in how AI could affect ecommerce. Google has already allowed Indian users to discover products, compare options and view prices through Gemini and conversational Search. Earlier this year, it also introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol, an open standard designed to let AI agents interact with retailers across activities including product discovery and checkout. Google has not confirmed whether UCP powers this particular Flipkart experiment.

Flipkart was named earlier this month as one of Google’s merchant partners for new agentic shopping experiences in India. The relationship is also financial: Google invested about $350 million in Flipkart in 2024, taking a minority stake as part of a funding round led by Walmart.

For ecommerce companies, the bigger change is where the shopping journey begins and ends. Instead of searching on Google and then moving separately to a marketplace, AI could increasingly handle discovery, comparison and the path to checkout in one conversation. The Flipkart test remains limited, and rival listings such as Amazon were still appearing without the same direct-buy option in the experience viewed by TechCrunch. But if broader rollout follows, India’s festive season could become an early test of whether conversational AI can evolve from shopping assistant into a meaningful transaction channel.