Congrats, Your New Storefront is a Conversation.
Plus: Google’s new “agentic commerce” standard is a quiet CX earthquake
📅 January 12, 2026 | ⏱️ 4-min read
Happy Monday!
The Executive Hook:
Remember when “digital commerce” was basically: search → scroll → compare → abandon cart → repeat forever? Yeah… AI is trying to end that whole era. Now your customer can just say what they want—and an agent can go do the annoying parts: digging, filtering, checking policies, even buying.
Which sounds great… until the agent confidently buys the wrong thing, and the customer stares at you like, “Why did you let the robot do that?” (Spoiler: they won’t blame the robot.)
Let’s dig in.
🧠 THE DEEP DIVE: Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol is a new “language” for AI shopping agents
The Big Picture: Google introduced Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)—a proposed open standard that helps AI shopping agents interact with retailer systems across the journey (discovery → checkout → post-purchase) without every brand building a million one-off integrations.
What’s happening:
UCP is basically “commerce plumbing.” The idea: standardize how agents and retail systems exchange the stuff that matters—product info, availability, offers, checkout steps—so agents can actually do things instead of just talking about them.
Google also rolled out Business Agent, so shoppers can chat with brands directly on Search. Think: a “virtual sales associate” living where customers already are… which is convenient for them and mildly terrifying for your web team.
And of course, ads are coming along for the ride. Google’s adding Merchant Center attributes and new offer formats designed for conversational discovery (because nothing says “delightful experience” like an AI assistant that suddenly becomes a coupon cannon).
Why it matters:
If UCP catches on, the “front door” to your brand isn’t your site. It’s the conversation the customer is having with an agent—maybe in Search, maybe in an assistant, maybe somewhere you don’t control.
So your CX moment of truth shifts from “Is our checkout clean?” to “Does the agent understand what we actually sell, what we actually promise, and what we actually do when something goes wrong?”
The takeaway:
Treat product data, policy language (returns/shipping/warranties), and brand voice like CX infrastructure. In an agent-driven world, sloppy inputs don’t just create friction—they create public confusion. And customers don’t say, “The protocol failed.” They say, “Your brand is a mess.”
Source: Google Ads & Commerce Blog
📊 CX BY THE NUMBERS: Customers are already using AI mid-journey
Data Source: IBM Institute for Business Value (with NRF), Jan 7, 2026
45% of consumers surveyed say they use AI during the buying journey. Translation: this isn’t “coming soon.” It’s already sitting at the table.
They use AI to research products (41%), make sense of reviews (33%), and find deals (31%). Which is basically the modern equivalent of bringing a very fast friend shopping with you.
72% still shop in-store. Meaning AI is shaping decisions before people walk in. The store associate is now meeting a customer who’s already been “briefed” by a machine.
The Insight:
Welcome to the “pre-store CX” era. Customers show up with a shortlist and a narrative—and more and more, that narrative comes from an AI. So if your product truth, reviews, and policies aren’t consistent and easy for systems to interpret, you’re outsourcing your brand story to whatever the agent thinks you meant.
Source: IBM Newsroom
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🧰 THE AI TOOLBOX: Home Depot’s “Magic Apron” gets more agentic (and more useful)
The Tool: Home Depot + Google Cloud expanded their partnership to bring agentic AI into customer and associate workflows—moving from “here’s some advice” to “let me help you actually get this done.”
What it does:
It’s aimed at helping customers (and associates) across channels—online, in-store, and service—especially for the kinds of projects that make normal search feel like punishment.
CX Use Case:
Project-to-purchase guidance: Customers describe a project in plain English and get recommendations that actually match the job—not just “people also bought a hammer.” Multimodal features (like images/visual context) matter a lot here because customers often can’t name what they need.
In-store wayfinding + inventory context: A localized experience can guide customers to aisle/bay-level locations with real-time inventory context—so you’re not sending someone on a scavenger hunt for a part that’s out of stock.
Trust:
This is the kind of AI I’ll cheer for: grounded in expertise, tied to real context, and designed to reduce frustration—not to “sound smart.” If it can say, “That won’t work for your setup,” and explain why, it earns credibility fast.
Source: Google Cloud Press Corner
⚡ SPEED ROUND: Quick Hits
Google is pushing personalized offers deeper into AI shopping flows. This can be helpful… or it can feel like you’re being followed around the store by a salesperson who knows your credit score. Choose your adventure wisely.
Source: Financial TimesA reminder that “good service” is still the headline. One story making the rounds highlights how customers notice when service is smooth—and increasingly suspect AI helped. The point isn’t “replace humans.” It’s “design the experience so progress is obvious.”
Source: VoxSMBs are buying bundled AI agents—fast. A small-business email platform launched an AI marketing agent and bundled AI support. Pattern to watch: smaller orgs want “one brain” across marketing and service, not five tools that don’t talk.
Source: Bento
🔭 THE SIGNAL: The next CX battleground is “who owns the conversation”
We’re moving into a world where customers don’t browse—they delegate. And delegation changes everything: the conversation becomes the storefront, the agent becomes the guide, and your brand becomes whatever the agent says you are.
So here’s the real CX leadership question for 2026: Are we designing for customers… or for the systems representing us to customers? Because if an agent messes up the details, the customer won’t say, “Ugh, interoperability challenges.” They’ll say, “Your brand can’t get its act together.”
See you tomorrow,
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