Google Tests In-Chat Flipkart Checkout in India, Leaves Amazon Out

Google is piloting a feature in India that lets some users buy products from Flipkart without ever leaving Gemini or AI Mode in Search, according to TechCrunch, which cited people familiar with the matter and its own review of the experience.

Select Flipkart listings now show a Buy button. Tap it, and the shopper lands in a Flipkart-branded checkout flow, still inside the Google interface. No bouncing to a browser tab. No re-typing a shipping address on a different site.

The test is narrow for now. TechCrunch reports it covers only some users and a small slice of products: smartphones, electronics, and mobile accessories. Everyone else still sees standard Flipkart listings with no direct purchase option.

Google plans to widen the rollout later in October, ahead of India's festive shopping season, one person told TechCrunch. A Google spokesperson said the company is "always testing new features and experiences to help people discover and connect with businesses more easily," and had no further details to share.

Not the checkout Google already showed off

This isn't the same system Google demonstrated earlier this year. In January 2026, Google introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol, an open standard meant to let AI agents talk to retailers through the entire shopping journey, including checkout, according to Crypto Briefing. That version routes purchases through a Google-hosted checkout page, with Google Pay as the primary payment method and PayPal support reportedly on the way.

The Flipkart test looks different. TechCrunch and multiple outlets that followed its reporting, including ua.news and Mezha.net, note the checkout screen is branded by Flipkart, not Google. What technology sits behind it is not publicly known. Google hasn't said.

Earlier in September, Google named Flipkart among the merchants working with it on what it calls "agentic shopping" in India, without detailing this specific test, TechCrunch reported.

Amazon gets left off the button

In the version of the interface TechCrunch and ua.news both describe, Amazon listings show up right alongside Flipkart's, but without any direct-checkout button. Same search results, different treatment.

Google has a financial relationship with Flipkart that goes beyond a technology partnership. The company invested roughly $350 million in Flipkart in 2024 as part of a funding round led by Flipkart's majority owner, Walmart, taking a minority stake, according to TechCrunch.

If the company running the AI assistant that recommends what to buy also owns a piece of one of the retailers it's recommending, and that retailer is the only one getting a frictionless in-chat checkout button, shoppers have a reasonable question about whether the AI is steering them. A skeptic would ask whether Flipkart is first in line because it's technically ready, or because Google has skin in the game.

There's no evidence in the reporting that this is anything more than an early, limited technical pilot. No antitrust complaint has been filed over this specific feature, and no regulator has opened an inquiry into it. Google's explanation that it "regularly runs experiments" is thin, but it's consistent with how the company rolled out earlier Gemini shopping tools in India starting in April 2026, when it added shoppable listings and price comparisons in English and Hindi before this checkout layer existed at all, according to Crypto Briefing.

It's also possible Amazon simply hasn't built the technical integration yet, since Google hasn't disclosed what powers the Flipkart flow. A conflict of interest requires more than a shared cap table. It requires proof the arrangement is designed to advantage one party over a rival with equal access. That proof isn't in front of us yet.

Where coverage gets sloppy

Crypto Briefing's write-up, dated September 26, 2026, states the test "kicked off in October 2026," a date that hasn't arrived yet as of this writing and contradicts the piece's own publication date. Every other outlet, including TechCrunch, Superpower Daily, and ua.news, describes the wider rollout as planned for later in October, with the limited test already running now. That's a meaningful mix-up on timing, not a minor typo.

Traders Union, meanwhile, framed the story as something that "could revolutionize e-commerce by streamlining transactions," language that reads more like a press release than a factual account of a feature still in beta and shown to a subset of users.

What's next

Google says the broader rollout lands in October, timed to India's festive shopping season, when Flipkart and Amazon both fight hardest for market share among India's more than one billion internet subscribers. Whether Amazon gets the same in-chat checkout treatment, and whether Google discloses what technology sits behind the Flipkart flow, remain open questions Google has not yet answered.