John is a writer at Pocket-lint. He is passionate about all things technology, and is always keeping up with the latest smartphone and PC releases. John has previously written at MobileSyrup. When he’s not reading and writing about tech, he enjoys listening to history podcasts and watching documentaries.
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After first previewing Universal Cart back at its I/O conference in May, Google is now officially making the online shopping tool available to all users in the United States. Universal Cart is an intelligent virtual cart that lets you save e-commerce products from across Google Search and Gemini in one convenient, centralized location.
"The cart puts you in control, helping to organize your shopping, keep track of items you love from across retailers, stay on top of promos, and enjoy effortless checkout powered by the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). Today, Universal Cart is rolling out in the U.S. across Google Search and in the Gemini app," says Google in a blog post.
Universal Cart is designed to help you stay organized while shopping, all while reducing the need to jump back into websites to scour through previously located deals. The tool lets you save products from multiple retailers directly to your Google Account, whether sourced from AI Mode in Google Search or from within the Gemini mobile application.
According to Google, Universal Cart is built on top of the foundations of its own Shopping Graph, with over 60 billion continually refreshed product listings. As a result, the feature works proactively in the background to send you notifications about price drops and inventory availability. Universal Cart also integrates directly with Google Pay and Google Wallet, automatically surfacing promotional codes and offering up advice on which payment methods to use at a given time.
The feature might come in handy this Black Friday
With its ability to help you organize products from multiple storefronts into a single cart while also tracking price drops, Universal Cart is an exciting proposition. I'm generally wary of AI-powered experiences on the web, but this one appears to be -- at least on the surface -- a good application of the technology.
I'm all about convenience when it comes to online shopping, especially in today's age of never-ending shopping carts, account credentials, URL links, passkeys, browser tabs, and more that all serve to add friction to the end-user experience. If I'm able to have my cake and eat it too by way of a universalized virtual shopping cart, I'm all for it.
Of course, I'll have to test out Universal Cart in the real world in order to vouch for its utility. AI-powered features can sometimes be hit-and-miss, and so I'll be curious to see how this one responds to the demands of real-world shopping flows. Thankfully, with Black Friday and the holiday season fast approaching, there'll be ample opportunity to test out the feature in the coming weeks and months.