There's been a lot of buzz around the releases at GML 2026, but I think the easiest way to make sense of this year's announcements is to stop reading them as a list of features. Because individually, there's plenty to get excited about but it's when you put them side by side that the real story comes into focus. Google is quietly reshaping how discovery, consideration, purchase and measurement all work together.
Here's what I think some of the key updates are, and why they matter to your business.
1. Agentic Commerce: UCP, Universal Cart & AI shopping experiences
The update: Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) checkouts are rolling out to the UK later this year, letting users buy directly from a product listing without ever visiting the retailer's site. UCP is also expanding beyond retail into travel and food delivery in the coming months. Alongside that, Google's Universal Cart lets people build a basket across different sites and check out off-site on Search, YouTube, or Gmail.
Why it matters: Google has dramatically shortened the path to purchase. If your customer can discover, evaluate and buy in a few clicks, that's a genuine win for conversion.
It does change the role your site plays & it brings into focus importance of product feeds as they contain everything needed for these AI-Powered updates. When the transaction happens off-domain, the site shifts from being the destination to being part of the fulfilment layer behind Google's interface and that has some interesting implications worth thinking about. How do we evolve retargeting strategies when site visits look different? How do we make sure first-party data is still captured when checkout moves off-site? Hopefully Google will have some answers to these when these updates roll-out.
2) AI-powered Search
The update: Google announced they are ‘reinventing ads for AI Search’, by releasing Gemini-powered ad formats built specifically for AI Mode and conversational Search, this includes Conversational Discovery ads and Highlighted Answers.
Why it matters: This is an interesting as it reframes what an ad is as its no longer traditionally made up of 15 headlines etc., for these conversation searches ads are dynamic, generated in the moment, and shaped by the user's question. The opportunity here is huge, ads that show up as helpful and relevant context in a buying conversation should perform very differently to interruptive formats. But it also puts an emphasis on the quality of what you give Google to work with to create these ai-powered ads. The brands that invest in things such as feed hygiene and in-platform brand guidelines now will have a real edge when these formats roll out.
3. Measurement is the most underrated update
The update: Meridian (Google's open-source MMM) is being integrated into Analytics 360. Two new metrics are being released, the first is Attributed Brand Searches (ABS), which will show whether wider brand activity like video is driving branded search behaviour and the second is Qualified Future Conversions (QFCs) which introduces predictive long-term value reporting. Data Manager is also being upgraded to pull in more first-party sources.
Why it matters: While everyone was distracted by anything starting with A and ending with I, Google quietly made the biggest play of the event. Meridian, ABS & QFC is Google's attempt to win back the credibility, by giving us short-term and long-term data understanding.
4. Creative is becoming an input, not an output
The update: Asset Studio is getting a revamp, by now understanding your marketing brief, brand guidelines, website, and goals to instantly generate a high-quality range of assets across multiple creative themes and formats. Video assets are also coming into the fold through the integration of Gemini Omni. Its also going to make testing at scale easier, with 1-Click A/B Testing letting you test variants and find what performs best against your goals.
Why it matters: For many brands, a common bottleneck is creative production and testing at scale, with these new features this accessible to all brands no matter the size.
5. Business Agents and Leads Centre
The update: Business Agent for Leads puts a smart brand agent right inside your ad. The agent runs 24/7, handling initial inquiries and capturing lead data outside business hours, with RCS messaging keeping the conversation going via text. Meanwhile, Leads Centre is essentially a mini-CRM inside Google Ads, with bidding upgrades that now learn from every goal set up, not just primary ones.
Why it matters: Sometimes it feels like lead-gen advertisers are the forgotten cousins of Google, with retail getting all the new shiny AI toys. A conversational agent that can meets users where they actually are reduces the effort of the user, as they no longer have to go hunting across your website to find their answers in that moment, that's a much better experience for the user and a much higher-intent signal for the advertiser. Two considerations here to start thinking about. Firstly, your website becomes the agent's training material, the quality of your site content directly shapes the quality of the conversation. Secondly, the algorithm learning from every goal means we should be more thoughtful about what we set up as secondary conversions. They're not just reporting metrics anymore, they're training signal.
The Bigger Picture
If I had to sum GML 2026 up in one line: Google is racing to make sure that as much of the customer journey as possible (discovery, consideration, purchase, and measurement) happens inside its ecosystem. Do we think that it is a possible defensive move against ChatGPT, Perplexity and agentic shopping disruptors?
