NEW YORK (AP) — Google said Sunday that it is expanding the shopping features in its AI chatbot by teaming up with Walmart, Shopify, Wayfair and other big retailers to turn the Gemini app into a virtual merchant as well as an assistant.

Google turned up the heat in the AI shopping wars this weekend, announcing plans to turn Gemini into a merchant and launching an open-source standard built together with major retailers including Shopify,

Google executive Sameer Samat sees the past year as one of curiosity about AI. This year, he's focused on its utility.

On Jan. 12 Five9 announced an expanded partnership with Google Cloud and a new joint Enterprise CX AI solution targeting large enterprises. The integrated offering combines Five9's AI-Infused Intelligent CX Platform with Google Cloud's Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience (GECX), Gemini models and Vertex AI platform.

Google has announced new AI-driven shopping tools on Sunday, which includes an open commerce standard, agent-powered checkout in Search and Gemini, branded AI sales agents and a new ad format aimed at simplifying discovery and purchase for online shoppers.