Background: Google is the global search and ads giant that basically powers half the internet. We're talking Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Translate, YouTube, the Android operating system and Google Shopping.

What happened: Google’s Shopping feature holds more than 50 billion product listings and updates 2 billion of them every hour. And now, Google has rolled out a new set of AI-powered shopping tools, including:

• A price-tracking feature that automatically buys an item once it drops into your chosen price range
• An AI phone-call tool that rings local stores to ask about stock, prices and promos on your behalf

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What else: Google is also adding Sponsored Listings to its AI shopping mode, because even Santa has to make money somehow. Overall, Google wants this new AI mode to shift the entire online shopping experience.

What's the key learning?

💡Shopping has shifted with every major tech wave, and now AI is set to redefine it all over again. It's gone through three major eras:

• Physical stores with the touch and the impulse purchases
• The rise of online marketplaces during the e-commerce boom
• Google’s push into agentic AI shopping

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💡The global agentic AI market is projected to grow rapidly from just over US$7 billion in 2025 to more than US$93 billion by 2032, representing a compound annual growth rate of more than 44 percent.

💡And with Christmas shopping coming up, Google wants its AI shopping tools front and centre at the exact moment consumers are buying the most.