Google tests a Buy button inside Gemini for Flipkart shoppers in India

Key points

• Google is running a live trial in India that places a Buy button on select Flipkart product listings inside Gemini and AI Mode, first reported by TechCrunch.
• The test covers smartphones and electronics accessories, with a wider rollout planned for October ahead of India's peak festive shopping season.
• Google invested roughly $350 million in Flipkart in 2024, making this both a technology partnership and a financial one.
• Amazon listings appear alongside Flipkart results in the test but carry no Buy button, giving Flipkart a transactional edge other retailers currently lack.

A small group of Indian shoppers searching for a phone through Google's Gemini, the AI assistant built into Google Search and its standalone app, can now tap a single button and land on a Flipkart checkout page without leaving the AI. That's the test Google is quietly running ahead of India's festive shopping season in October, a stretch of weeks when Flipkart and Amazon compete hard for every rupee.

The button appears on select product listings from Flipkart, the e-commerce company owned by Walmart, inside both Gemini and AI Mode, Google's AI-powered search experience. Tapping it opens a Flipkart-branded checkout rather than a Google-hosted one. That distinction matters: Google has separately been building its own checkout layer through the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard designed to let AI agents complete purchases across any compatible retailer. The Flipkart trial routes users straight to Flipkart's payment flow instead.

Why is Flipkart getting a Buy button when Amazon is not?

Amazon listings appear in the same AI results but carry no Buy button. Google told TechCrunch it's "always testing new features" but gave no details. The more direct explanation is money and partnership: Google put roughly $350 million into Flipkart in 2024 as a minority investor, and Flipkart is among the retailers Google named earlier this month as partners for its agentic shopping push in India. Agentic shopping means AI software that can recommend a product and actually complete the purchase for you.

AI2Day first covered AI Mode's expanding role in product discovery on 10 September, when Google was pitching it as a gear-shopping assistant for runners. A transactional Buy button is a significant step further than surfacing recommendations.

OpenAI has been adding its own commerce features, so the competitive pressure is real on both sides.

What does this mean for Indian shoppers?

If the October rollout goes ahead, a shopper in India could describe what phone they want, see Flipkart results, and pay in a few taps. Fewer screens, less friction. The catch is that Google's AI surfaces what it chooses to surface, and right now that surface isn't neutral: one retailer has a Buy button and others don't. Anyone comparing prices across Amazon and Flipkart should keep that asymmetry in mind rather than assuming the first clickable result is the best deal.

Google's UCP announcement blog signals the longer plan: an open protocol any retailer can adopt, so the Buy button eventually belongs to whoever earns the sale rather than whoever signed the earliest partnership deal. Whether that open vision survives the pressure of a festive-season launch is worth watching closely.

The honest read here is that the Flipkart trial is less about search innovation and more about locking in a commercial relationship during the most lucrative few weeks of India's retail calendar. The UCP framing suggests Google wants to be seen as a neutral plumbing layer, but a Buy button that only one retailer gets tells a different story.