Google's Gemini shopping push meets skepticism from Apple's retail pioneer

Two reports published on the same day capture opposite ends of the debate over AI-driven commerce. An analysis on dev.to lays out how Google is weaving shopping capabilities through Gemini, AI Mode and its Shopping Graph. The same day, TechCrunch published an interview with Ron Johnson, the executive who built Apple's retail stores, arguing that the industry is overestimating how much of shopping people will hand over to machines.

Google's connected shopping play

According to the dev.to report, a promotional demo suggests Gemini users may be able to research purchases, compare products and browse from a camera image directly inside the assistant. The deeper story, the report argues, is a cross-service strategy described in Google's I/O 2026 materials: agentic shopping experiences, a Universal Cart described as an intelligent cart that can pull items from Search, Gemini, YouTube and Gmail, and buy-enabled interfaces such as Buy buttons on eligible product listings in AI Mode. The Shopping Graph, Google's product-information foundation, sits underneath as the data layer connecting those surfaces.

The report is careful about limits. The exact capabilities shown in the demo, the devices that support them, the markets involved and any merchant requirements are unspecified, and camera-led browsing should be read as a credible signal of multimodal product search rather than a confirmed new sales channel. Availability also appears to be developing unevenly, with the report citing rollout activity in the Philippines.

The practical consequence for retailers, the dev.to analysis suggests, is that product discovery may increasingly happen inside conversational interfaces. That raises the value of complete product data, clear comparisons and dependable listings, because a merchant relying only on conventional search placement has less control over how an AI system represents its products when a shopper asks for alternatives or buying guidance.

The man who built the Apple stores is not buying it

Johnson, 66, joined Apple in 2000 to build its retail business just as online shopping was taking off. Speaking to TechCrunch, with his new book Shop Different: How Retail Revealed Apple's Genius revisiting those years, he said: "AI is a new technology that will improve the online shopping experience. But I don't know that it's going to change which way we shop."

Asked whether someone would let an agent choose and buy a $1,000 or $2,000 laptop without ever visiting a website or store, he was blunt: "Honestly, nobody's going to do that." A laptop is too personal a purchase to delegate, he argued, because buyers want to feel its weight and see the display before spending that kind of money. "AI will never be able to have you physically experience a product," he said. His expectation is that agents will leave people better prepared: "They'll just become more informed shoppers when they come to the store."

Johnson's track record gives the argument weight, though not unblemished authority. After Apple, his attempt to reinvent J.C. Penney ended in his ouster less than two years after he arrived in 2011, an outcome he now attributes to changing too much too quickly and applying a startup mentality to what needed to be a turnaround. His later venture, Enjoy Technology, filed for bankruptcy in 2022 and sold its assets to Asurion. He insists Apple's retail success came from people, including non-commissioned staff trained to work out what customers actually needed, rather than the glass-heavy designs and open layouts competitors copied.

Notably, Johnson describes himself as an AI believer. "I'm a real believer in AI. I'm an AI optimist," he told TechCrunch, adding that Steve Jobs would have embraced the technology too, but not as a substitute for judgment. "There's no substitute for human intuition."

Why it matters

The disagreement is about degree, not direction. As TechCrunch notes, Google is also promoting a Universal Commerce Protocol, a standard designed to help AI agents carry consumers from product discovery to checkout, while OpenAI is turning ChatGPT into a shopping destination where users can research, compare and sometimes buy without leaving the chatbot. Billions of dollars are being wagered that agentic commerce becomes default behavior.

Johnson's counterpoint is that high-consideration purchases resist automation because physical experience and human advice remain decisive. Read together, the two reports point to the same practical conclusion for merchants and platform teams: AI-assisted discovery is arriving unevenly but persistently, the quality of product data increasingly determines how items are represented inside these systems, and the physical and AI-mediated parts of the buying journey are more likely to blend, with agents informing shoppers before they reach a store, than to replace each other outright.