Google is making two significant changes to its Gemini ecosystem, testing direct purchases through its AI services in India while retiring its custom assistant feature, Gems, in favor of a new skills format.
In India, Google has begun testing a Buy button on select products from Walmart-owned Flipkart within Gemini and AI Mode, allowing shoppers to move straight into a Flipkart-branded checkout without leaving the AI interface, according to people familiar with the matter. The trial is limited to some users and a small range of products, including smartphones, electronics and mobile accessories. One person said Google plans a broader rollout later in October, ahead of India’s festive shopping season, when Flipkart and Amazon compete most intensely for customers. Amazon listings appeared alongside Flipkart’s in the test but without the direct purchase option.
A Google spokesperson said the company is always testing new ways to help people discover and connect with businesses and had no further details to share. The test differs from the Google-hosted checkout the company demonstrated earlier this year when it introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol, an open standard allowing AI agents to interact with retailers through to checkout, and it is unclear what technology powers it. Google recently named Flipkart among its partners for agentic shopping in India and invested about $350 million in the company in 2024, taking a minority stake. The move mirrors efforts by rivals including OpenAI to expand AI assistants from product recommendations into completing transactions.
In other company news, Google is shutting down Gems, launched in 2024 to let users build custom AI assistants for specific tasks without repeating instructions. Examples included premade learning coaches, brainstorming assistants, career guides, coding partners and editors, as well as user-built helpers such as running coaches and vacation planners, which could be shared with others. A message in the Gemini app says Gems will automatically migrate to skills starting November 17, 2026, and will remain usable until then, with no action required from users.
Skills can be used across different AI tasks and are accessed by typing a forward slash in a task thread, an interface more commonly favored by engineers than everyday users. The change, first reported by 9to5Google, comes as all-in-one AI agents such as Meta’s Muse and Instinct gain rapid traction with consumers, raising the competitive stakes for how Google packages Gemini’s agentic capabilities.
