Google expands AI shopping tools, adds hotel tracking and store calls

Google pushed further into the shopping and travel funnel by letting users track prices on a specific hotel and by adding a tool that can call nearby stores on a shopper’s behalf. The changes extend Google’s role from search engine to shopping broker, with more buying decisions filtered through its AI layer.

The company’s major shopping update, announced Nov. 13, 2025, folded richer product information into AI Mode in Search. Google said the experience brought together visuals, prices, reviews and inventory data, backed by the Shopping Graph, which it said held more than 50 billion product listings and refreshed 2 billion of them every hour. Google also said the shopping features were available in the United States or rolling out there in the coming months, and it added shopping tools to the Gemini app.

AI Mode itself launched in the United States in May 2025 after testing in Labs. Google positioned it as a more powerful search experience built around query fan-out and follow-up questions, and the shopping additions made that system more central to how Americans compare products. For retailers, that means visibility increasingly depends not just on traditional search rankings, but on whether their inventory, pricing and offer data are rich enough to surface inside Google’s own shopping system.

The new calling feature narrows that control over local commerce even further. U.S. users can search for items such as toys, health and beauty products or electronics with “near me” or “nearby,” then choose “Let Google call” to have the company contact nearby stores. Google said it would return a summary by text or email, showing whether nearby stores had the item, the price, available offers and extra inventory pulled from Shopping Graph listings.

The tool may save time for shoppers who do not want to make repeated calls, but it also concentrates power in one platform that decides which stores are surfaced and what information reaches the customer. Google’s support materials say the feature does not yet handle custom questions or product holds, which limits its usefulness for complicated purchases and leaves the final transaction squarely in the hands of the retailer. For smaller businesses that depend on search visibility, the shift is more than a convenience update. It is another step toward a marketplace where Google controls the first conversation, and increasingly the next one too.