The other day, I saw the Google News channel on X respond to claims that Google is going to allow merchants to overcharge you for products sold through the new AI checkout protocol. Some are saying Google will show a higher price in the AI Mode shopping experience, and charge you more, than what is on the website, if you check out manually. I found it crazy because Google has checks and balances to ensure merchants can't do this and Google responded as such.
Lindsay Owens wrote "Big/bad news for consumers. Google is out today with an announcement of how they plan to integrate shopping into their AI offerings including search and Gemini. The plan includes “personalized upselling.” I.e. Analyzing your chat data and using it to overcharge you."
But no, Google has had policies about suspending merchants who change their pricing at checkout and even allows Googlebot to add items to the cart so Google can automatically check if merchants are doing this. Google will even label this on some interfaces.
Google replied on X saying:
These claims around pricing are inaccurate. We strictly prohibit merchants from showing prices on Google that are higher than what is reflected on their site, period.
1/ The term “upselling” is not about overcharging. It’s a standard way for retailers to show additional premium product options that people might be interested in. The choice is always with the user on what to buy.
2/ “Direct Offers” is a pilot that enables merchants to offer a *lower* priced deal or add extra services like free shipping — it cannot be used to raise prices.
Here are those posts:
These claims around pricing are inaccurate. We strictly prohibit merchants from showing prices on Google that are higher than what is reflected on their site, period.
— News from Google (@NewsFromGoogle) January 12, 2026
1/ The term “upselling” is not about overcharging. It’s a standard way for retailers to show additional premium…
The wild thing is Elizabeth Warren, the US Senator, went with this, and Google had to reply to that too:
Senator, we wanted to ensure you saw our response to this post. The claims regarding pricing are not accurate, and we’ve clarified the facts here: https://t.co/hLKdWqluoL
— News from Google (@NewsFromGoogle) January 13, 2026
Forum discussion at X.
