Gemini strikes new deal with Walmart, further narrowing ChatGPT's lead

• Google Gemini announced it was partnering with Walmart to offer AI-powered shopping recommendations.
• Gemini will use Walmart and Sam's Club purchase history for tailored product suggestions.
• It's the latest win for Google's AI chatbot, which is trying to catch up to OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Gemini is on a roll.

After a slow start, Google's AI chatbot is rapidly gaining users, topping AI benchmark leaderboards, and forcing its biggest competitor, OpenAI's ChatGPT, into "code red" emergencies.

Now, in another big leap, Walmart, the world's largest retailer, is partnering with Gemini on a new shopping experience — similar to one it struck with ChatGPT in October.

When people use Gemini to ask questions or search, the assistant will now automatically recommend relevant products from Walmart and Sam's Club, drawing on users' past online and in-store purchases, Walmart said in a press release on Sunday.

For users who have linked their Walmart accounts, Gemini can tailor recommendations based on purchase history and enable delivery of in-store items within three hours, or as little as 30 minutes.

Walmart CEO John Furner said the partnership marks a shift in how people shop.

"The transition from traditional web or app search to agent-led commerce represents the next great evolution in retail. We aren't just watching the shift, we are driving it," Furner said in the press release.

In recent years, discovery-led shopping experiences on social media platforms like TikTok Shop, Instagram Shopping, and live shopping services like Whatnot have disrupted the traditional digital shopping experience.

AI is reshaping the discovery process even further.

Gemini 3 plays catch-up

While Gemini still trails ChatGPT in overall number of users by a significant margin, it's closing the gap and even outperforming OpenAI in other key ways.

In November, after years of taking heat as the slow-moving leviathan in the AI race, Google redeemed itself with the launch of Gemini 3.

The latest version of Google's chatbot was well received by both consumers and industry leaders. Its stock price surged in the weeks following the rollout, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said he would switch from ChatGPT to Gemini, calling the latter "insane" in a viral post.

The hype forced OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to declare a "code red" at his company.

Gemini also benefits from Google's larger ecosystem of products, like Search, Workplace, Android, and Google TV.

The protocol battle

Another promising development for Gemini, underpinning its partnership with Walmart, is the launch of a new retail protocol, which Google refers to as the Universal Commerce Protocol.

"AI agents will be a big part of how we shop in the not-so-distant future," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a post on X on Sunday. "To help lay the groundwork, we partnered with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart to create the Universal Commerce Protocol, a new open standard for agents and systems to talk to each other across every step of the shopping journey."

Protocols have long served as the invisible scaffolding of the digital realm, and streamlining a new era of agent-to-agent communication is a critical step in unlocking an agent-powered world, founders building AI protocols previously told Business Insider.

OpenAI unveiled its own commerce protocol in September, following the launch of Instant Checkout. The new feature lets users buy items directly in ChatGPT from Etsy and over a million Shopify merchants, the company said in a blog post announcing the feature.

OpenAI also said the protocol behind it, the Agentic Commerce Protocol, is "an open standard for AI commerce that lets AI agents, people, and businesses work together to complete purchases." It was developed alongside Stripe.

Google's mission appears to be similar.

In response to a request for comment, a Google spokesperson referred Business Insider to a blog post Pichai wrote about its new Unified Commerce Protocol.

In it, he explains how the new protocol will change the consumer shopping experience.

He said if a shopper is looking for a suitcase, the protocol allows retailers to instantly offer a new-member price or prompt loyalty enrollment. Returning customers might see tailored discounts or product suggestions, such as packing cubes, when they check out. The transaction can then be completed in just a few taps through Google Pay — without leaving the chat, Pichai said.