Google Launches AI Checkout in Australia. Websites Optional.

Google has launched its Universal Commerce Protocol in Australia — the first market in Asia-Pacific. Bunnings, Kogan, THE ICONIC, Adore Beauty, and Petbarn are the initial retailers signed up to the new checkout experience. Customers can browse, compare, and purchase directly inside Google Search, AI Mode, and the Gemini app. No website visit required.

This is the latest step in a pattern worth tracking. Earlier this year, Ahrefs data showed Google's AI Overviews had cut position-one click-through rates by up to 58 per cent. Then Google's AI agents started calling trades businesses to book jobs on behalf of users. Now the AI handles the transaction itself. Discovery, evaluation, checkout — all inside Google.

The Universal Commerce Protocol is an open standard Google developed with Shopify, Walmart, Target, Wayfair, and Etsy. Over twenty companies have endorsed it, including payment processors Mastercard, Visa, Stripe, American Express, and Adyen. The protocol creates a common language that lets AI agents interact with businesses across the entire buying process — product discovery, comparison, checkout — without the customer visiting a business's website.

In practice: a customer asks Google's AI to help plan a deck build. The AI recommends decking boards, structural materials, tools, and fixings from connected retailers. The customer adds everything to a Universal Cart — a single cart that works across multiple merchants and across Google surfaces including Search, YouTube, and Gmail. They check out with Google Pay or PayPal, right there inside the AI conversation.

Bunnings — Australia's first major retailer to launch an AI shopping assistant — has already seen what happens when AI mediates the buying decision. Their Gemini-powered assistant Buddy, which scopes entire renovation projects and recommends materials, more than doubled online conversion rates and increased basket sizes in its first weeks. Twenty-five thousand customers used it in a single week to plan projects from painting a room to renovating a kitchen.

Google is building infrastructure where AI handles the complete customer journey inside its own ecosystem. Today that's physical products. But the architecture is designed to extend. Google's AI already calls trades businesses to book appointments on behalf of users. The same protocol that completes a Bunnings purchase can compare quotes, evaluate reviews, and book a service provider.

For trades businesses, Bunnings' participation is worth watching closely. When a homeowner asks Google's AI to plan a bathroom renovation, the AI recommends materials and lets them buy — with how-to videos attached. That's a customer who might have called a professional to scope the job. The more Google's AI handles upstream, the more the customer arrives with fixed expectations about materials, timeline, and cost — shaped by the AI, not by you.

For professional services, the signal is directional. Clients are increasingly comfortable letting AI evaluate and select providers. The accounting firm or law practice whose information is machine-readable and review-rich will surface when an AI agent searches on a client's behalf. The one relying on word-of-mouth alone won't. This is fundamentally a revenue capture problem. If your business isn't visible where AI agents look, the customer never reaches you — regardless of how good your work is.

First, audit your Google Business Profile. Every service listed, hours accurate, reviews responded to. AI agents weight completeness and recency. This is no longer optional SEO hygiene — it's how AI decides whether to recommend you.

Second, add structured data to your website. Schema markup for services, pricing, service areas. AI agents read structured data, not hero banners and mission statements. Google's own Universal Commerce Protocol documentation emphasises machine-readable business information as the foundation.

Third, track where your enquiries originate. If Google is already your primary discovery channel, this shift accelerates your exposure. If referrals drive your pipeline, you have more runway — but less reason to wait.

Key takeaways

Want to understand how AI-powered discovery affects your business?

The way customers find and choose businesses is shifting faster than most owners realise. A short conversation can identify where your business is visible to AI — and where it's invisible. Book a call.