Google’s Universal Cart announcement is one of the clearest signals that commerce is entering a new era. The next version of online shopping will not be limited to search boxes, filters, product grids and checkout buttons. AI agents will help users discover products, compare options, track prices, remember payment benefits, monitor stock and in some cases complete purchases without the user visiting multiple websites.

This is a real shift. But I do not agree with the idea that this will end online store visits. That conclusion is too simplistic.

Agentic commerce will change how users discover products. It will change how some purchases are completed. It will reduce low-quality browsing and make comparison shopping more automated. But it will not remove the need for merchant-owned digital stores. In fact, I believe the opposite will happen.

As more discovery moves to AI agents, the merchant’s own store will become even more important because the store will become the place where high-intent shoppers are converted, reassured, supported, personalized and retained.

Google may help users find what to buy. But merchants still need to make users believe, trust, choose and come back. That is a very different problem.

Discovery Is Not the Same as Commerce

The first mistake in most agentic commerce conversations is that people treat shopping as one action. They imagine the user asks an AI agent for a product, the agent finds it, adds it to cart, checks out and the journey is over.

This will happen for some categories. If I want to reorder toothpaste, buy the same protein powder again, or find the cheapest compatible phone charger, I may not need to visit a store. These are utility purchases. The user already knows the need, the risk is low, brand preference may be weak and the decision can be optimized around price, availability, delivery speed and compatibility.

But most meaningful commerce does not work like that. Fashion does not work like that. Beauty does not work like that. Jewellery does not work like that. Furniture does not work like that. Gifting does not work like that. Premium products do not work like that.

In these categories, the user is not only buying an item. The user is buying confidence.

• Will this look good on me?

• Is this brand trustworthy?

• Will the fabric feel premium?

• Will the size fit?

• Is the return policy easy?

• Can I wear this for my trip?

• Is this good enough as a gift?

• Why should I buy this brand and not another?

These are not just discovery questions. These are persuasion, trust and decision questions. An AI agent can shortlist. But the merchant still needs to convert.

Universal Cart Can Own Transactions. It Cannot Own the Entire Relationship.

Google’s Universal Cart is powerful because it can sit across surfaces. It can help users collect products from different places and move closer to purchase without jumping between many tabs. That is useful.

But a universal cart is still largely a transaction layer. A merchant needs a relationship layer.

This difference matters. A cart knows what the user may buy now. A store needs to understand why the user is buying, what is stopping them, what they bought earlier, what they returned, what they asked in support, what they abandoned, what they liked, what they ignored and what should happen next.

That intelligence cannot live only inside a universal cart. It has to live inside the merchant’s own commerce system. Otherwise, brands become interchangeable inventory providers inside someone else’s interface.

This is the real risk. If all shopping decisions are mediated by a universal agent, the easiest things to compare become dominant: price, delivery, rating, discount, and availability. But great brands are not built only on those variables. They are built on taste, trust, storytelling, service, identity, community and experience.

A universal cart can make checkout easier. It cannot fully replace the brand’s ability to create desire.

Many Purchases Will Still Happen Inside the Merchant’s Digital Store

There is a practical reason merchant stores will not disappear: a large number of purchases still require the user to enter the brand environment before deciding.

A user may discover a product through Google, Instagram, WhatsApp, ChatGPT, Gemini, TikTok or a friend. But before buying, they often still want to see the product page, photos, reviews, size chart, shipping policy, return policy, styling ideas, customer support and brand story.

This is especially true when the purchase has emotional, social, or financial weight.

Think of a physical mall. A mall directory can tell you where the stores are. A personal assistant can suggest which stores to visit. But when you enter a premium clothing store, the actual sale still depends on the store experience - the display, the staff, the trial room, the lighting, the recommendations, the trust and the feeling that “this is right for me.”

Google’s Universal Cart is like a smarter mall directory plus a checkout counter. But the brand’s store is still the showroom. And in many categories, the showroom is where the decision happens.

The same will be true online. Users may discover through agents, but they will still convert inside merchant-owned digital stores when the decision needs trust, context or confidence.

This Is Why Stores Will Need Agentic SaaS Like Eldor

If users continue visiting merchant stores, the next question is obvious: what should the store become?

It cannot remain a static website. A static store is not enough in an agentic world. If the user arrives with a complex intent - “I need something for a beach wedding under ₹3,000 that looks premium but not too loud” - the store cannot respond with filters.

If the user is confused about size, the store cannot make them hunt through a generic size chart. If the user is comparing two products, the store cannot leave them alone with ten tabs open. If the user abandons the cart, the store cannot send a generic “You left something behind” message. If the user asks a support question, the store cannot break the journey and push them into a ticket system.

The store needs to behave like an intelligent sales, support and retention system. That is where agentic SaaS becomes critical.

A merchant needs an AI layer that understands its catalog, customers, policies, orders, inventory, conversations, campaigns and business priorities. This AI layer should know which products match the shopper’s intent, which objections are blocking conversion, which products have return risk, which size or variant is likely right, which bundle increases AOV, which abandoned cart deserves a discount, which support issue needs automation, which shopper should be recovered on WhatsApp and which product should be recommended next.

This is not just chatbot functionality. This is the commerce brain of the store. The future merchant stack will need agentic SaaS because the store itself has to become adaptive.

Google Will Bring High-Intent Traffic. Stores Must Be Ready to Convert It.

The rise of agentic commerce may actually make store visits more valuable.

Today, many users land on stores casually. They browse, get confused, fail to find what they want and leave. Tomorrow, if an AI agent sends a user to a merchant store, that user may already be more qualified. They may have a clearer need, they may have compared options and they may be closer to purchase.

But this also means the merchant has less room for error.

If the site search is bad, the user leaves. If the product page is unclear, the user leaves. If the size guidance is weak, the user leaves. If the support is slow, the user leaves. If the experience feels generic, the user leaves.

Agentic commerce will not make merchant UX less important. It will make merchant UX brutally important. Because once AI improves discovery, the bottleneck moves to conversion.

The question will no longer be only, “How do we get traffic?” The question will become, “When high-intent traffic arrives, can our store actually sell?” Most stores today are not ready for that. They are built like digital catalogs, not intelligent sales systems.

The Next Battle Is Not Google vs Online Stores. It Is Dumb Stores vs Intelligent Stores.

I do not think the future is Google replacing every online store. I think the future is more nuanced.

There will be three layers. The first layer is discovery. This may increasingly happen through Google, Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, influencers and AI agents.

The second layer is transaction. Some of this may happen through universal carts, wallets, marketplaces and agentic checkout protocols.

The third layer is merchant intelligence. This is where the brand understands the shopper, guides the decision, handles objections, personalizes the journey, supports the customer, recovers revenue and builds retention.

The third layer is where stores need to evolve. And this is the layer most merchants do not have today. They have plugins, dashboards, email tools, support tools, analytics tools and search tools. But they do not have one shared reasoning layer that understands the customer journey and decides what should happen next.

That is the gap agentic SaaS companies will fill.

The Old Store Was Passive. The New Store Will Be Agentic.

The old store waited. It waited for the user to search, filter, compare, ask support, abandon cart and maybe come back. That model is ending.

The new store will act. It will guide shoppers when they are confused. It will recommend when intent is clear. It will explain when trust is missing. It will support when friction appears. It will recover when the user leaves. It will learn from every conversation, click, order, return and support ticket.

This is not just a better storefront. This is an autonomous commerce system.

That is why agentic SaaS will be needed by every serious merchant. Because even if Google owns part of discovery, the merchant still owns the responsibility to convert, serve, retain and grow the customer.

My View

Google’s Universal Cart is not the death of online stores. It is the death of lazy online stores.

It will reduce meaningless browsing, automate parts of comparison, and make price, availability and convenience more transparent. But it will not replace the merchant’s need to create trust, desire, confidence, service and loyalty.

The brands that depend only on traffic will suffer. The brands that depend only on discounts will suffer. The brands that treat their store as a static catalog will suffer.

But brands that turn their store into an intelligent, agentic experience will become stronger. Because in the agentic commerce era, the store visit does not disappear. It becomes more intentional.

And when the user arrives with intent, the best merchant will not be the one with the most plugins. It will be the one with the smartest commerce brain.

That is the future we are building at Eldor AI.