Wayfair Shares Climb After Partnership With Google on AI-Driven Shopping Protocol

Shares of Wayfair rose about 1.5% in after-hours trading on Monday after the company announced a partnership with Google focused on a new commerce protocol designed to improve AI-powered shopping experiences.

The home furnishings retailer has collaborated on the development of Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard intended to enable smoother and more integrated interactions between artificial intelligence agents and retail platforms. The protocol will support a new checkout experience across selected product listings within Google’s AI-powered search environment and the Gemini application.

Under the new setup, shoppers will be able to complete purchases from Wayfair while researching products, without needing to leave Google’s ecosystem. Wayfair will continue to act as the merchant of record, maintaining control over pricing, order fulfillment, and customer service throughout the transaction.

“Wayfair is investing in AI-driven product discovery wherever our customers choose to engage, whether on our own app or across external AI platforms,” said Fiona Tan, the company’s chief technology officer. She added that the Universal Commerce Protocol functions as a shared framework for this emerging ecosystem, allowing AI agents to connect product discovery directly with checkout while ensuring Wayfair remains responsible for service quality.

The partnership is consistent with Wayfair’s broader strategy of investing in technology aimed at making product discovery more intuitive and personalized. The company has previously introduced features such as Muse and the Discover tab within its app to help shoppers better define their style preferences and identify relevant products more efficiently.