Senator Elizabeth Warren is demanding answers from Google about how its new AI-powered shopping feature will handle user data. In a letter sent to CEO Sundar Pichai, the Massachusetts Democrat warns that integrating checkout directly into Gemini could let Google and retailers "exploit sensitive user data" or "manipulate consumers into spending more and paying higher prices." The move marks the first major regulatory pushback against Google's Universal Commerce Protocol, which launches soon with partners including Shopify, Target, Walmart, Wayfair, and Etsy.
Google just hit its first regulatory speed bump in the race to commercialize AI. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is pressing the tech giant for transparency about its plans to turn Gemini into a shopping platform, raising concerns that the company's unprecedented data troves could be weaponized to manipulate consumer spending.
The scrutiny comes on the heels of Google's announcement last month that it will soon allow users to complete purchases directly within its Gemini AI chatbot. The feature relies on the Universal Commerce Protocol, a new standard Google developed alongside retail heavyweights Shopify, Target, Walmart, Wayfair, and Etsy. It's designed to let AI agents seamlessly communicate with retailers, but Warren wants to know what's happening behind the curtain.
"Google already possesses unprecedented troves of user search and AI chat data, and such intimate data could be merged with both user data from other Google services and third-party retailer data to drive consumer behavior in an exploitative manner," Warren writes in her letter to Pichai. The Massachusetts senator isn't just concerned about what Google knows. She's asking pointed questions about what retailers will learn about users through this pipeline.
