What is Google's Universal Cart?

An intelligent multi-retailer cart that works across Google services (Search, Gemini). At checkout, UCP enables payment in a few taps with Google Pay, or transfers the items to the merchant's site. The retailer always remains the merchant of record.

Is UCP available outside the United States?

On May 20, 2026 Google announced that UCP-powered checkout will roll out across Canada and Australia in the coming months, and later to the U.K.

UCP: Google Marketing Live 2026 announcements

On May 20, 2026, at Google Marketing Live, Google announced a major expansion of the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP): checkout inside ads, buy now pay later, international rollout, and an opening to hotel booking and food delivery. The day before, Google introduced Universal Cart, the UCP-powered multi-retailer cart.

Universal Cart: the UCP-powered multi-retailer cart

Universal Cart is a cart that works across retailers and across Google services (Search, Gemini). When shoppers are ready to buy, UCP makes checkout smooth: payment in a few taps with Google Pay at many brands, or transferring the items to the merchant's site to complete the purchase. Either way, the retailer always remains the merchant of record: it keeps the customer relationship, the data and the post-purchase experience.

The first brands getting these select checkout features: Nike, Sephora, Target, Ulta Beauty, Walmart, Wayfair, plus Shopify merchants such as Fenty and Steve Madden.

UCP checkout is coming to ads

Google is starting to wire UCP into ad campaigns. Brands that have integrated UCP will let people buy on the spot from exclusive promotions shown with Direct Offers and from Shopping ads on YouTube run through Demand Gen campaigns with product feeds. On the payment side, Google Pay gains embedded buy now pay later options from Affirm and Klarna.

International rollout and new industries

Geography: UCP-powered checkout will roll out across Canada and Australia in the coming months, and later to the U.K.
Industries: Google is bringing the protocol to hotel booking and local food delivery with industry partners. In the coming months, people will be able to book a hotel right from AI Mode in Search, or order food delivery from a conversation in Google Maps.

For merchants: new AI visibility tools

AI performance insights (Merchant Center): a view into how your brand performs on AI surfaces, comparing your share of voice against similar brands. Rolling out in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and the U.S.
Conversational attributes: available globally to align product descriptions with the more conversational way people now search.
Ask Advisor: an agentic collaborator inside Merchant Center that will share tailored insights, complete tasks and connect across Google Ads and Google Analytics (announced as coming soon).

What this changes for your roadmap

Three practical consequences for a merchant: (1) UCP integration is no longer just about discoverability, it now gates transactional ad surfaces; (2) continental Europe is not in the first expansion wave (Canada, Australia, then the U.K.), which leaves a preparation window; (3) the quality of your product feed and structured data becomes the central asset, since it powers checkout, ads and AI insights alike.

UCP: what Google announced at Marketing Live 2026