A Buy Button Inside Gemini: Google Tests Direct Flipkart Checkout in India

For years, the deal between Google and the web was simple: Google surfaces products, retailers close the sale. That bargain is now being rewritten in India. Google has started testing a way for shoppers to buy products from Walmart-owned Flipkart directly through Gemini and its AI Mode in Search, moving its AI services one decisive step beyond product discovery and into the transaction itself.

The mechanics, as seen by TechCrunch and confirmed by people familiar with the matter, are straightforward but consequential. Users in the test see a “Buy” button on select Flipkart product listings appearing inside Gemini and AI Mode. Tapping it opens a Flipkart-branded checkout flow — without the shopper ever leaving Google’s AI interface. The test is currently limited to some users and a small selection of products, focused on smartphones, electronics, and mobile accessories. Other users continue to see regular Flipkart product listings in Gemini and AI Mode without the option to buy them directly.

The timing is not accidental. Google plans to roll out the experience more broadly later in October, right before India’s festive shopping season — the period when e-commerce companies deploy their biggest sales and promotions of the year, and when Flipkart and Amazon compete most fiercely for the country’s online shoppers. India is the world’s second-largest internet market, with more than a billion internet subscribers, making it the ideal proving ground for what Google clearly hopes becomes a new default: shopping inside the assistant.

From answering questions to closing sales

The test marks a structural shift in what an AI assistant is for. Google’s own April description of AI shopping in India focused entirely on the research phase: Gemini displayed product listings, comparison tables, prices from across the web, and places to buy. AI Mode in Search could show product images alongside prices, reviews, and inventory information. All of that helped a shopper decide what to buy — then handed them off to a retailer’s site to actually buy it.

This test adds the missing step: checkout. The distinction is where the shopper goes after making a choice. Tapping Buy in this test brings up a Flipkart-branded checkout while the user remains in Gemini or AI Mode. That is categorically different from seeing a price or a link to a store. It means Google’s AI surfaces are no longer just a discovery layer on top of commerce — they are becoming a storefront.

Notably, the Flipkart test appears different from the Google-hosted checkout experience the company demonstrated earlier. When Google unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) earlier this year — an open standard designed to let AI agents interact with retailers across the shopping journey, including checkout — it showed a Google-hosted checkout for eligible products in Gemini and AI Mode, and has since extended UCP with the ability to transfer items to a retailer’s site to complete a purchase. The Flipkart experiment, by contrast, surfaces Flipkart’s own branding at the moment of payment. It is not clear what technology powers the test, and the visible checkout screen does not explain the system behind it. Google’s UCP is the obvious candidate, but the company is not saying.

Why Flipkart, and why now

The choice of partner is not random. Earlier this month, Google said Flipkart was partnering with it to bring what it calls “agentic” shopping experiences to consumers in India — though it had not disclosed details of the test or its rollout timeline. There is also a financial relationship underneath the technology one: Google invested roughly $350 million in Flipkart in 2024 as part of a funding round led by Walmart, taking a minority stake in the e-commerce company.

Those connections provide context, but they do not fully answer the strategic question. The more revealing detail is what the test does not include: in the experience TechCrunch saw, listings from rivals including Amazon appeared alongside Flipkart products but did not offer the option to purchase directly through the AI interface. A snapshot of one test does not establish a permanent checkout policy for competing retailers, and Google would face intense scrutiny — commercial and potentially regulatory — if Buy buttons systematically favored retailers it holds stakes in. But the asymmetry in this early version illustrates exactly what is at stake: in a world where the assistant can transact, being transactable becomes a competitive asset, and not every retailer will have it on equal terms.

Asked about the Flipkart test, a Google spokesperson told TechCrunch the company is “always testing new features and experiences to help people discover and connect with businesses more easily,” adding that it regularly runs experiments and has no further details to share. Flipkart did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The agentic-commerce race accelerates

The move comes as Google and rivals including OpenAI race to add transactional capabilities to their AI offerings, striving to move beyond answering shopping queries and recommending products to playing a more direct role in online purchases. If assistants become the place where shopping happens, the value chain reorganizes around them: product discovery, comparison, payment, and post-purchase support all collapse into a single conversational surface.

That prospect explains why this small Indian test deserves attention far beyond India. Agentic commerce splits ranking from transactability — the AI decides not only which products to show, but which ones can actually be bought on the spot. For retailers, the risk is disintermediation: becoming an inventory backend that fulfills demand the assistant owns. For Google, the opportunity is enormous and obvious: transactions are where advertising money has always flowed, and a checkout it hosts or enables is a checkout it can measure, attribute, and ultimately monetize.

The competitive dynamics in India make it a particularly sharp test bed. Flipkart and Amazon compete fiercely for Indian shoppers, and festive season is when the battle peaks. If Google’s Buy button rolls out broadly in October and meaningfully shifts purchases toward Flipkart listings, Amazon will face pressure to strike similar integrations — or watch a rival gain a structural advantage inside the region’s most-used AI surfaces.

There are open questions, too. What happens to returns, disputes, and customer service when the purchase happens inside an assistant? Who is liable when an agent mis-orders? How will Google handle payment credentials, and under what data-sharing terms with the retailer? None of these have public answers yet, and the test’s small scope suggests Google is still working through them.

What to watch

The signals to track over the next few weeks are concrete. First, whether the October rollout happens at scale and how many product categories gain the Buy button. Second, whether Amazon India or other major retailers gain equivalent direct-purchase paths — the moment more than one retailer is transactable inside Gemini, agentic commerce stops being a partnership story and becomes a platform story. Third, whether the underlying technology is confirmed as UCP, which would make Flipkart the standard’s first high-profile live deployment.

For now, the button is small, the test is limited, and Google is saying almost nothing. But the direction is unmistakable. The search giant that built its fortune on sending users elsewhere to buy things is now experimenting with keeping them home. In India’s festive season, inside the world’s second-largest internet market, the checkout is moving into the chat.