United Kingdom, Feb. 12 -- Google is ramping up its efforts to turn artificial intelligence into a direct shopping engine, unveiling new features that let users buy products within AI-powered Search and its Gemini chatbot.

The Alphabet-owned tech giant confirmed it has been testing fresh ad formats inside Search's AI Mode, allowing retailers to surface products directly within conversational answers.

Users can now also purchase items from platforms such as Etsy and Wayfair inside Gemini, as Google looks to blur the line between discovery and checkout.

Vidhya Srinivasan, Google's vice president overseeing ads and commerce, said in a statement: "We aren't just bringing ads to AI experiences in Search; we are reinventing what an ad is." ...