If you're an ecommerce, digital, or growth leader at a top 100 retailer right now, you're probably triaging more vendor decks, board questions, and platform announcements than your team can absorb.
Google is expanding AI Mode. Amazon Rufus is moving deeper into purchase-influencing queries. ChatGPT and Perplexity are reshaping product discovery. Your agency sends three decks in a week. Your board asks what your “agentic commerce strategy” is. Your media team wants budget guidance. Your product data team says the feed needs rebuilding. Your CDO is in three vendor meetings before noon.
It's better to treat this as a clarity problem rather than a technology problem.
At ReFiBuy, we've been tracking Google's moves since Google CEO Sundar Pichai took the stage at NRF in January and laid out the infrastructure play: Universal Commerce Protocol, native checkout, Business Agent, and the Commerce Media Suite. Each piece landed separately. On May 20, eight days from now, Google Marketing Live is where those pieces start to connect.
For large retailers, that matters more than any individual product announcement, because GML is where Google sets your H2 operating reality, not just your ad strategy.
Here's how to use the next eight days well.
Google Marketing Live is commonly described as an ads conference. That framing undersells it and causes people to send their paid media team and call it covered.
In practice, GML is the moment Google connects its product roadmap to its commercial roadmap. It's where features that have been running in beta for months get formalized, get timelines, and (critically) get the investment signals that tell you whether to pilot them or wait. In 2025, one ~80-minute keynote introduced more than 30 new AI tools and features, including AI Max for Search, Smart Bidding Exploration, ads in AI Overviews, and the first live demonstration of ads inside AI Mode. Almost every significant Google Ads change for the second half of 2025 was traceable to that keynote.
This year is different in two ways.
First, GML lands during the same Google I/O window: May 20. The timing matters. When Google's developer announcements and its advertising announcements land in the same 24 hours, the product capabilities announced in the morning show up as advertising features by afternoon. In 2025, the Gemini model updates from I/O fed directly into the ad tools announced at GML hours later. Expect the same pattern this year, with Gemini's newest capabilities translating into features across creative generation, product discovery, and audience modeling, all in one sitting.
Second, Google spent the first four months of 2026 laying groundwork that GML will now consolidate. The Universal Commerce Protocol at NRF in January. Native checkout with Wayfair, Etsy, Target, Walmart, and Ulta in February and April. New Merchant Center data attributes for conversational commerce. The Commerce Media Suite in limited beta. Demand-led bidding pacing announced last week. Together, they were a setup. May 20 is where Google explains how they fit together, and what the expansion timeline looks like for the rest of the year.
You don't need to watch GML to be informed. You need to watch it to make faster decisions. Here are the four areas where the keynote will set a clock on choices your organization needs to make.
1. The Universal Commerce Protocol: are you in the pilot or watching from the sideline?
UCP is Google's open standard for connecting retailers directly to Agentic Shopping Engines, enabling native checkout inside AI Mode and the Gemini app without a redirect. Shopify is Google's protocol co-developer; Walmart, Target, Ulta, Wayfair, and Etsy are among the live launch retailers. The protocol is expanding, and GML will announce the next wave of retailers along with the broader availability timeline.
For retail companies not yet in the pilot, the decision after GML is simple: get in line or accept that your competitors are building a structural discovery advantage on what is now the fastest-growing referral source in US retail. Per Adobe Digital Insights, AI traffic to US retail sites grew 393% year-over-year in Q1 2026, and AI-referred traffic now converts 42% better than non-AI traffic, up from converting 38% worse a year prior. That makes it a primary channel, one that currently rewards whoever shows up in AI Mode with a checkout pipe attached.
2. Product catalog infrastructure: does your data speak agent?
At NRF in January, Google announced dozens of new Merchant Center data attributes designed specifically for discovery in the conversational commerce era, across surfaces like AI Mode, Gemini, and Business Agent. These include answers to common product questions, compatible accessories, and substitute recommendations. Google said they would roll out first with a small group of retailers before expanding more broadly in the coming months.
These attributes are moving product enrichment from a merchandising exercise into AI shopping infrastructure. An AI Shopping Agent fielding “the best waterproof hiking boot under $200 for wide feet” is parsing structured intent against the content and context in your catalog data to assemble a Product Card. If your feed lacks the fields and context the agent needs, your product is less likely to make the Product Card.
For top retail companies with tens of thousands of SKUs, the practical question is whether they have a process to execute Agentic Commerce Optimization (ACO) at catalog depth before competitors do. ReFiBuy raised its $13.6M Seed last week to help brands and retailers scale exactly that kind of infrastructure.
GML should give retailers a clearer read on how fast Google’s attribute rollout is moving, how those attributes connect to AI Mode and native checkout, and what product data readiness will require next. Be ready with that answer before the keynote.
3. The Commerce Media Suite: can your loyalty data become a revenue line?
Google’s Commerce Media Suite, currently in limited beta, points toward a future where retailers can activate and monetize first-party data across Google’s commerce and AI-powered shopping surfaces, while brands can use retailer signals to target more precisely. In practical terms, Google is building toward a retail media layer that sits closer to AI-native discovery than traditional ad placements.
For retail companies that have spent years building loyalty programs and first-party data infrastructure, this is the moment where that investment gets a new return path. A retailer with clean, consented purchase data and a loyalty base can now offer that as a targeting signal inside one of the fastest-growing ad surfaces in retail.
GML will clarify how the Commerce Media Suite scales, what the data-sharing architecture looks like, and whether it goes to broader availability this year. The window is narrowing for retailers that want to turn first-party data into a commerce media advantage before it becomes table stakes.
4. AI Mode measurement: how are you attributing revenue you're already missing?
Here's a number that should be uncomfortable Adobe's March 2026 data shows AI-referred traffic now converts 42% better than non-AI traffic. A year ago, it converted 38% worse. That kind of reversal should change how retail teams think about attribution.
GML will likely include measurement announcements. Google has been building toward better AI Mode conversion tracking, new attribution models for conversational journeys, and updates to how Merchant Center feed interactions connect to downstream purchases. Most retail attribution stacks weren't built to capture AI-mediated touchpoints cleanly, which reflects a structural gap the whole industry is navigating. GML's measurement announcements will likely give teams better footing here, and it's worth going in with a clear sense of where your current visibility ends so you know what to ask for.
The best use of the next eight days is getting your organization positioned to act on the announcements, and not just react to them.
Get your Google account team on the phone this week. Ask specifically about UCP pilot eligibility, Commerce Media Suite beta access, and the new Merchant Center attributes rollout. Large retailers have account relationships that smaller competitors don't. Use those relationships to get early positioning, not just briefings.
Audit your product feed for AI readability now. Run your top 50 highest-revenue SKUs through a simple test: ask Google's AI Mode, Gemini, and Amazon Rufus the questions your customers ask. If the AI can't accurately answer use-case, compatibility, and comparison questions about your products, your feed likely has a context gap. You don't need to wait for GML to start fixing it.
Brief your media and growth leadership together. GML announcements affect budget allocation, channel strategy, product data, and commerce infrastructure simultaneously. If your paid media team and your product org watch the keynote separately, you'll get fragmented responses. Get them in the same room for the May 20 session.
Have a decision framework ready. In 2025, Google made more than 30 announcements in about 80 minutes. The teams that moved fastest were the ones who had a clear framework, rather than the ones who tried to understand every feature immediately for evaluating which bets matched their Q3/Q4 priorities. Know your priorities before the keynote, so the announcements can inform them rather than overwhelm them.
The chaos of Agentic Commerce is real, but it has a logic. Google has been building a layered infrastructure (checkout pipes, product data standards, retail media monetization, AI-native ad formats, and personalized discovery) and on May 20, retailers should get a clearer view of how those layers connect and when they may scale
For retailers, the advantage starts before GML. It comes from showing up on May 20 with the right questions, the right teams briefed, and the organizational readiness to move quickly on the announcements that matter.
The window between "early mover" and "playing catch-up" in Agentic Commerce is measured in months, not years. The retailers who treat GML as a decision event, not a content event, will be the ones setting the pace in Holiday 2026.
Google Marketing Live 2026 is free to attend via livestream. Register at googlemarketinglive.com/digital/US-2026. The keynote starts at 8:45 AM PT on May 20.
ReFiBuy is the Agentic Commerce Optimization platform for brands and retailers, evaluating, enriching, and maintaining SKU-level eligibility across every Agentic Shopping Engine, so your products earn Product Card Coverage and win Product Card Ownership where AI Shopping Agents make their decisions. If the catalog question in Decision #2 is one your team is navigating, talk to us.
For ongoing signal tracking on Agentic Commerce, our podcast and newsletter Retailgentic covers these developments weekly, and is free to follow at retailgentic.com.