Google Put a Flipkart Buy Button Inside Gemini

Google has started letting some shoppers in India buy from Flipkart without leaving its AI products. In a limited test first reported by TechCrunch on September 26, select Flipkart listings inside Gemini and Google's AI Mode now carry a "Buy" button. Tap it and a Flipkart checkout flow opens, per TechCrunch, "without leaving the AI interface."

The test is small. It covers some users and a narrow slice of catalog: smartphones, electronics and mobile accessories. Everyone else still sees ordinary listings. But the timing is not small at all. Google plans a broader rollout later in October, ahead of India's festive shopping season, which is the most important sales window of the year for Indian e-commerce. Flipkart's own Big Billion Days sale opens to all users on October 9, with early access for Plus, Black and eligible co-branded card members at midnight on October 8, per The Sunday Guardian.

A checkout that stays Flipkart's

The most interesting detail is whose checkout it is. When a user taps Buy, the flow that appears is Flipkart-branded, TechCrunch reports. That differs from the Google-hosted checkout the company has previously shown off, where shoppers pay with Google Pay using payment and shipping details saved in Google Wallet.

Google has not said what technology powers the test. Its spokesperson told TechCrunch the company is "always testing new features and experiences to help people discover and connect with businesses more easily," and declined to share more. Flipkart did not respond to TechCrunch's request for comment.

The likeliest scaffolding is Google's Universal Commerce Protocol. Sundar Pichai announced UCP at the National Retail Federation's show on January 11 as "a new open standard for agentic commerce that works across the entire shopping journey," per Google's own announcement. It was co-developed with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart, and Flipkart was one of the more than 20 companies that endorsed it at launch, alongside Adyen, American Express, Best Buy, Mastercard, Stripe, Visa and Zalando. Google has since expanded UCP so a shopping session can be handed off to a retailer's own site to finish the purchase, which is exactly the shape of the Flipkart test.

Even in Google's hosted version, the retailer is not cut out. "Retailers remain the seller of record, with the ability to customize the integration," Google wrote in January.

The money behind the button

This is not an arm's-length experiment. Google invested roughly $350 million in Flipkart in 2024, taking a minority stake as part of a funding round led by Walmart, which controls the company. The two also have a technology partnership. Walmart, for its part, has been one of the most aggressive large retailers in saying yes to AI agents. It signed a deal with OpenAI in October 2025 for purchases inside ChatGPT, and in January, incoming CEO John Furner and Pichai announced on the NRF stage that Walmart shoppers would be able to discover products, build carts and buy inside Gemini, per CNBC.

So the Flipkart pilot extends a pattern already running in the U.S. into Walmart's biggest international bet. Google gets a transaction, not just a click. Flipkart gets a new front door at the moment demand peaks. Walmart gets another proof point that its properties are where agents can actually finish the job.

The contrast with Amazon

TechCrunch noted one detail that tells the whole story: Amazon listings appear in the same test results, but without a Buy button.

That fits Amazon's posture. As Flux reported this week, Amazon blocked Meta's Muse agent from shopping Amazon.com on September 20, telling users that "continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon's Conditions of Use." Amazon has also moved to block shopping agents from Google and OpenAI. Its argument is about consent and security. Its interest is in keeping the shopper on its own pages, where its advertising business lives.

The Flipkart test shows the alternative arrangement working in practice. There is no scraping, no credential sharing and no dispute over who authorized what. The retailer opted in to a protocol, the checkout carries the retailer's brand, and the retailer stays the merchant. It is a version of agentic commerce designed to answer, in advance, every complaint Amazon has raised.

India raises the stakes

India is where this matters most for Amazon. Flipkart and Amazon are the two dominant general marketplaces in the country, and the festive season is their head-to-head fight. If Gemini and AI Mode become a meaningful place where Indian shoppers research phones and electronics, a Buy button on one marketplace and a plain listing on the other is a real asymmetry, precisely in the categories where festive discounts are deepest.

Google's scale in the country makes the distribution question sharper. Google Search is where a large share of product research already begins, and AI Mode now sits on top of it. Every shopper who finishes a purchase inside that flow is one who never opened a marketplace app to compare, never saw a sponsored listing and never got retargeted.

Why it matters

Agentic commerce is settling into two camps. In one, platforms like Google, Shopify, Stripe and PayPal build standards that let any willing merchant be bought from by any agent, with the merchant keeping its brand and its customer record. In the other, a destination marketplace decides that agents come in only on its terms, or not at all.

The Flipkart pilot is the partner-permissioned model in its cleanest form, and it is being tested during the one season when the volume is big enough to show whether it moves sales. If the October rollout goes wide and Flipkart sees a lift, the pressure on Amazon changes from a legal and security argument to a commercial one: the cost of being the store the agent cannot check out from. For merchants watching from anywhere, the signal is the same one Shopify and PayPal have been sending for weeks. Being agent-ready is becoming a distribution decision, and the protocol seat is open.