September 26, 2026. Since Tuesday, September 22, Google has been emailing Merchant Center users whose stores run on Shopify to tell them that "your products are now eligible for native checkout" in AI Mode on Google Search and in Gemini, powered by the Universal Commerce Protocol, and that "eligible products are automatically included. There's nothing for you to set up." Shopify's help centre confirms the default: "Purchasing in direct checkouts is activated by default for eligible stores." For a US Shopify merchant with a Merchant Center feed, it means you may already be selling inside Google's AI answers, in a checkout where "Google Analytics and custom pixels won't fire," with the on-or-off decision made for you until you make it yourself.
What changed
- The rollout widened. Search Engine Roundtable reported the emails on September 22, quoting one received by consultant Menachem Ani. UCP-powered checkout launched with a limited set of merchants in February; Google pushed it to more retailers on Friday, September 18. Google's email says merchants "manage and retain full ownership of your customer relationships, data, and sales" and points to Sales channels, then Agentic, in the Shopify admin to turn it off.
- Who is eligible. Per Shopify: a US-based store selling to US customers, a valid Google Merchant Center account, products available in Merchant Center (via the Google and YouTube channel with auto-sync, or a third-party feed), Shopify Catalog eligibility, the Agentic Storefronts Supplemental Terms of Service, and completed store policies. Direct checkout is shown only to US-based customers; everyone else is redirected to your store.
- What the AI checkout cannot sell. Subscriptions, product bundles, customizable products and B2B-only products are unsupported. Some checkout blocks, such as custom fields, upsells and specific validations, may not display; local delivery, store pickup and pickup points are not offered; and you cannot require customers to sign in. Shopify Functions for shipping, discounts and cart validation do run, and automatic discounts and discount codes apply. Legal disclosures must sit in the first 6,000 characters of the product description.
- What you will not see. "The checkout fires only server-to-server pixels (started, completed), so none of the standard or custom client side pixels fire." GA4, Meta and any custom pixel record nothing for these orders.
- What it costs. Nothing beyond your standard payment processing fees, according to Shopify.
- How to turn it off. In the Shopify admin go to Sales channels, then Agentic; deactivate "Allow Shopify to manage for me"; click Google AI Mode and Gemini; deactivate Direct checkout. Customers can still find your products in AI Mode and Gemini but are sent to your store to buy.
What it means for operators
Decide, do not drift. Left on, the channel wins orders from shoppers who would never have clicked through to your site. Turned off, you keep the full funnel: upsells, bundles, subscriptions, account creation and every pixel that feeds your ad platforms. The default means a store that never opens the Agentic channel has chosen the first option without knowing it, and its search revenue will look smaller than it is because the visit that produced the order never happened on the site. Give AI Mode orders a home in your reporting before judging whether Google search is working.
If your margin depends on the post-purchase upsell, the bundle or the subscription, none of that exists in the AI checkout; the buyer gets a plain cart with your discounts applied. Stores built on those mechanics should test the channel on a subset of SKUs, which a Shopify expert can do through Merchant Center product eligibility rather than by switching the channel off.
The bigger shift is where the ranking happens. Discovery in AI Mode and Gemini "is powered by Google Merchant Center," so the completeness of your product data, prices, shipping and return policy is now what decides whether an AI answer shows your product at all. That is AI search optimization applied to a product feed rather than a blog post. The other side of the same week, Amazon blocking a rival's shopping agent, is in our note on the agentic commerce split.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, for eligible stores. Shopify's help centre states that purchasing in direct checkouts is activated by default for eligible stores, and Google's Merchant Center emails say eligible products are automatically included with nothing to set up. Eligibility currently requires a US-based store selling to US customers with products in Google Merchant Center.
In the Shopify admin, go to Sales channels, then Agentic. Deactivate Allow Shopify to manage for me, click Google AI Mode and Gemini, and deactivate Direct checkout. Customers can still discover your products in AI Mode and Gemini, but they are redirected to your online store to complete the purchase.
No. Shopify says Google Analytics and custom pixels do not fire in the Google AI Mode and Gemini direct checkout; only server-to-server pixels for checkout started and completed fire. The order still lands in Shopify, but your web analytics never see the visit that produced it.
Subscriptions, product bundles, customizable products and B2B-only products are unsupported. Local delivery, store pickup and pickup points are not available as delivery methods, some checkout customization blocks may not display, and you cannot require customers to sign in before checkout.