Google brings instant checkout to Gemini in Canada with Lululemon and Simons
Google has switched on instant checkout inside its Gemini chatbot in Canada, letting shoppers buy from Lululemon Athletica, Shoppers Drug Mart, La Maison Simons and selected Shopify merchants without ever leaving the app or Google's AI search mode. The feature, launched earlier this year in the U.S. and Australia, arrived in Canada on Wednesday.
The mechanics matter for anyone who sells online. A shopper who asks Gemini for a winter coat in a particular style, colour and size can be shown options from a participating retailer and complete the purchase there, with the user retaining the final say. "It's the customer that will decide what interface they want to interact on," said Frederick Lecoq, Simons' chief digital and marketing officer.
For retailers the shift cuts both ways. As shoppers move from traditional search to chatbots, brands are working to surface their products in AI-generated results — generative engine optimisation — while trying to keep a direct relationship with buyers who may never see their website. Amazon blocked Meta's Muse agent from shopping on its site after Meta launched agent shopping in September. Lululemon's Nick Engel compared the hesitation to retailers who once feared building e-commerce sites would pull customers from their stores, adding that letting agents complete the transaction "makes a lot of sense."
Shopify already lets shoppers approve purchases through Shop Pay in Muse, Claude Duet, Grok Bot and Instinct, and is weighing whether users could pre-authorise agents to finalise purchases without approving each one, vice-president of product Rohit Mishra said. Demand signals are building: a Mastercard survey found 41 per cent of Canadians are open to using AI to shop online, and a Google and Angus Reid survey in October found 59 per cent plan to use AI to find holiday gifts.
The Canadian rollout is deliberately narrow. Shoppers can buy only one item at a time at first, so building a multi-item cart — often needed to hit a free-shipping threshold — still means clicking through to the retailer's site. Google has already enabled multi-item checkout in the U.S. and plans to bring that, price alerts and more retailers to Canada. "We see AI, broadly, as an expansionary moment for search," said Eric Morris, Google Canada's managing director and head of retail, noting search growth is at its highest year-over-year level in five years.
