Gap is in partnership with Google Gemini will allow buyers to pay directly within the AI platform, making it the first major fashion company to work directly with the tech company to power agent commerce, CNBC has learned exclusively.
This partnership comes as more shoppers are moving away from traditional search and toward artificial intelligence platforms for product discovery, forcing retailers to rethink their marketing approach to ensure they remain competitive and don’t miss out on customer demand.
“It’s not just about keyword search anymore, right? These are conversations, and so we have to be relevant to that,” Sven Gerjets, Gap’s chief technology officer, told CNBC in an interview. “Is it, you know, ‘I’m trying to figure out what to do for a wedding, what are the things I should look at?’ Or: “I have a job interview, are there any styles I should wear?” All these things we need to become relevant to. »
When shoppers are looking for a new pair of jeans or the perfect oversized hoodie on Gemini, and the platform thinks certain Gap products might be right for them, customers will be able to purchase products from the Gap house of brands directly on the platform without having to be redirected to the brand’s website.
The product information presented to shoppers will not be analyzed from the Gap website, but will be details provided by the retailer to Gemini in advance so that the retailer can monitor accuracy, continue to collect customer data and have greater control over the customer experience.
If the buyer decides to purchase the product, they will pay via Google Pay and Gap will take care of shipping and other logistics.
Gerjets said Gap was still testing the service’s capabilities but planned to roll it out to customers “imminently.”
Shoppers walk past a GAP fashion store on Oxford Street on October 30, 2025 in London, United Kingdom.
John Keeble | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Additionally, a new AI-powered sizing tool called Bold Metrics, which Gap plans to integrate, will help customers find the right size when shopping online and will also launch to shoppers soon.
Gap’s partnership with Gemini and its gains in customer-facing AI tools give it a competitive advantage at a time when it’s harder than ever to win in specialty retail. The global fashion market is increasingly fragmented and competitive.
As long as a retailer’s website contains data that an AI platform can read, the company’s products will likely appear in discussion results if the platform considers them suitable for a shopper’s request, but retailers have to do a lot of work to ensure they display correctly.
If a buyer searches for a summer dress on an AI platform, for example, and a company offers a relevant product, but the data is not readable by an LLM, the brand could miss the sale.
Most large companies use and implement AI in various ways, but so far none of Gap’s main competitors have announced similar partnerships with Gemini.
Gap’s approach to agent commerce is an early iteration that should evolve over time, Gerjets said.
For now, customers won’t be able to link loyalty accounts or spend points on the transaction, he said. That could create friction for regular customers, but Gerjets said the option could be added later.
“We will continue to evolve the experience and deliver the things customers want, so that’s definitely the roadmap and the future,” Gerjets said. “It’s a very first experience, I think, in a journey where we’re all really understanding what the agent business is for clients.”
The AI War in Retail
Gap’s partnership with Gemini comes after OpenAI struck similar deals with companies including Walmart And Etsy only to backtrack on plans to offer payment directly in the app.
Even though the number of people using AI platforms for product discovery is increasing, it still represents only a small portion of overall shoppers, and the number of customers who will feel comfortable paying directly into LLMs remains uncertain.
Some shoppers may be hesitant to enter their credit card information into the platform, while others may prefer to shop directly in a retailer’s app where the store’s credit card and loyalty points are stored.
Given how long buyers have been interacting with Google and the fact that customer payment information is already stored in its system, some buyers might feel more comfortable using Gemini for payment compared to newer AI platforms such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
In some ways, the Gemini platform is also more advanced. Google recently released new updates to make real-time product data available to users, preventing issues like out-of-stocks and pricing errors. Shoppers will also be able to add multiple items to their cart and connect loyalty subscriptions in some cases – two features that OpenAI has yet to fully leverage.
Gerjets said OpenAI and Gemini also have two different protocols for agent commerce. The “universal commerce protocol,” which Gap uses on Gemini, was designed for merchants to have greater control over the overall shopping experience, while OpenAI’s “agent commerce protocol” was designed more for discovery, Gerjets said.
“This space is evolving so quickly… We are all evolving and learning together, and who knows what the space will look like in five years, who will be crowned the winner, or how fragmented the space will be?” said Gerjets. “For us, it’s important to work with each of them, because we really want to meet our customers where they want to be.”
Correction: This story has been updated to correct that Gap plans to integrate an AI-powered sizing tool called Bold Metrics. A previous version incorrectly indicated the relationship between Gap and the tool.