Local Memo: Google’s Commerce Protocol; Gemini Powering Siri and Gaining in Market Share

Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol: Powering AI-Driven Shopping

The News: Google announced the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard that allows AI agents to interact directly with retailers’ commerce systems, from product discovery to checkout, without custom integrations.

Courtesy Google for Developers

What This Means: UCP accelerates Google’s move toward agentic commerce, where AI assistants do more than recommend products. They complete purchases without sending users to a brand’s website. As more transactions happen directly within Google’s AI experiences, brands should expect continued traffic loss as consumers stay in-platform.

This also raises the stakes for visibility inside AI-generated results. If a brand does not appear in an AI “consideration set,” it effectively loses the sale. 

For brands, success in this environment depends on ensuring product, inventory, and business data is structured, accurate, and AI-ready, so AI agents can confidently surface, recommend, and transact on their behalf.

AI-driven commerce is shrinking the path from discovery to purchase. Brands that fail to optimize for AI visibility risk becoming invisible at the moment of decision.

Apple and Google Partner on AI: Gemini to Power Apple Intelligence

The News: Apple and Google announced a multi-year collaboration in which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google’s Gemini AI models and cloud technology. These models will help power upcoming Apple Intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri expected later this year.

What This Means: This partnership highlights Google’s growing role as foundational AI infrastructure, even among competitors like Apple. By choosing Gemini, Apple is signaling strong confidence in Google’s AI capabilities.

For users, this enables more personalized and context-aware Apple Intelligence features, while preserving Apple’s privacy standards. For brands, it raises the stakes for AI-driven discovery. As assistants like Siri become more proactive, they will shape recommendations and decisions without relying on traditional search results.

If a brand is not surfaced by these AI systems, it risks being excluded from the consideration phase entirely. Ensuring accurate, structured, and trustworthy business data is essential as AI assistants become primary gateways to information and commerce.

Google Gemini Gains Ground as ChatGPT Loses Share

The News: New data shows ChatGPT is losing market share, while Google Gemini continues to gain adoption, driven by deeper integration across Google Search, Android, and now Apple’s AI ecosystem. The shift highlights changing user behavior as AI becomes embedded directly into products people already use daily.

Courtesy SimilarWeb

What This Means: Gemini’s growth highlights the power of distribution. Rather than being a standalone tool, Google is embedding Gemini across Search, Android, and now Apple’s AI ecosystem, making it a default experience for millions of users.

Apple’s decision to build its next-generation AI models on Gemini further compounds Google’s influence. As Gemini powers AI experiences across both Google and Apple platforms, it increasingly shapes how information, recommendations, and decisions are delivered at scale.

For brands, this means AI visibility is consolidating. If a brand is not accurately represented in Google-powered AI experiences, it risks losing relevance across multiple ecosystems at once. Investing in structured, accurate, and trusted data is becoming essential as Gemini’s role in discovery and consideration continues to expand.