Google is eager for you to use its AI to assist with your holiday shopping and has now enabled AI Mode and Gemini to directly link you to products. This feature is backed by Google's "Shopping Graph, " which contains information on 50 billion products and also supports Google's Shopping tab. Starting today, it’s accessible to everyone on both desktop and mobile platforms. Here’s how it functions: within Google search’s AI Mode or the Gemini app/website, you can ask questions or input prompts regarding physical products—for example, "Help me find an espresso maker with a steam wand, affordable, and beginner-friendly. " If the AI locates matching product data from the Shopping Graph, it will provide a brief summary and display several product options along with details like pricing and user reviews. Clicking any product tile opens a sidebar showing websites where you can buy the item. In essence, it’s like using Google’s Shopping tab but enhanced with a virtual shopping assistant (or, frankly, a salesperson) offering additional context about the products. Some searches allow you to select checkboxes on product tiles to follow up with questions—for instance, marking two products to ask the AI to compare them or inquire which is cheaper or has better reviews. At a recent press event, Google representatives explained that the initiative aims to simplify purchasing gifts for friends or family members who are traditionally tricky to shop for, making shopping easier by enabling natural language searches. My hands-on experience During my testing, the tool generally performed well but had some issues. The main challenge was getting the AI to identify certain products as topics it could present product tiles for.

For example, when I asked for "Popular Nintendo Switch games under $60, " I received a list of games but no purchase links. I suspect the AI interpreted this as a general gaming query rather than a shopping request, and despite rephrasing, it didn’t show product tiles even when explicitly asked. I also encountered difficulties with natural language queries. At the press event, Google provided journalists with sample questions to try the feature, but I found only those queries specifying particular product types triggered clickable product tiles. For instance, asking "Give me Christmas gift ideas for my sister who loves knitting and reading" did not activate the feature, whereas "show me ottomans that can be used as coffee tables" did. Even Google's own example from their announcement blog—requesting Christmas gift ideas for a college student who likes running—yielded generic responses like "running shoes" and "moisture-wicking socks, " but no specific purchasable items. This doesn’t mean the AI can’t help generate gift ideas, but when it comes time to buy, you’ll likely need to pose a new query targeting a specific product type rather than general ideas for a person. It adds an extra step to a process designed to simplify purchasing decisions. Given these limitations, many users may continue relying on the standard Shopping tab, where product links consistently appear. However, Google hopes that integrating shopping into AI Mode will ultimately offer the best of both worlds: enabling more detailed searches than traditional Shopping allows, while accessing training data like Reddit posts and website reviews that the Shopping tab can’t tap into. Now, if only I could convince my family that my thoughtful gift suggestions weren’t all sourced from a robot.