At Cloud Next ’26, Ulta Beauty and Google unveiled an AI commerce partnership that signals a fundamental shift in how beauty is discovered, evaluated, and purchased.
The announcement introduces Gemini-enabled shopping experiences embedded directly into Google’s AI surfaces, alongside the launch of “Ulta AI,” a proprietary assistant designed to personalize discovery across Ulta Beauty’s own ecosystem. Together, the initiatives point to a future where the traditional beauty funnel—search, browse, compare, checkout—collapses into a single conversational interaction.
At the center of the partnership is “agentic commerce,” a model that allows consumers to move from inspiration to purchase without leaving an AI interface. Over the coming month, Ulta Beauty’s assortment will become shoppable within Google’s AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app, where users can receive recommendations, compare products, and complete transactions in real time.
“Ulta Beauty has always been about inspiring guests’ discovery through trusted expertise and curated choice,” said Lauren Brindley, Chief Merchandising and Digital Officer at Ulta Beauty, in a press release. “Now, we’re extending that same strength into AI-powered shopping experiences, making beauty discovery more seamless, personalized, and shoppable wherever it happens.”
The experience is powered by Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard that enables transactions directly within AI environments. Ulta Beauty is among the first retailers to implement the protocol at scale, signaling an early-mover advantage in what could become a dominant layer of commerce infrastructure.
“Agentic AI has great potential to make online shopping easier for everyone, at every stage in the shopping journey,” said Ashish Gupta, Vice President and General Manager of Merchant Shopping at Google, in the press release. He added that Ulta Beauty’s UCP integration “is a vital step toward that future,” enabling customers to purchase “right at the moment of discovery.”
In parallel with its Google integration, Ulta Beauty is launching Ulta AI, a new shopping assistant built on Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience. The tool will live across Ulta.com and its mobile app, leveraging insights from the retailer’s 46+ million loyalty members to deliver tailored recommendations, guide navigation, and simplify product discovery across its expansive assortment.
“Ulta Beauty engaged early… because we see a clear shift in how guests are discovering and shopping for beauty, with AI playing a much bigger role in that journey,” said Mike Maresca, Chief Technology and Transformation Officer at Ulta Beauty. “We believe AI has the potential to elevate personalization to a new level.”
The assistant is positioned as a complement to Ulta Beauty’s in-store expertise, not a replacement, extending the role of beauty advisors into digital environments where discovery increasingly begins.
Beyond user-facing features, the partnership reflects a deeper strategic play: control over the infrastructure of AI commerce. By embedding its catalog into Google’s AI ecosystem while simultaneously building its own assistant, Ulta Beauty is pursuing a dual-channel strategy, meeting consumers within third-party discovery platforms while reinforcing its owned digital environment.
“The next era of commerce will be shaped by how well retailers turn AI into practical, scalable capabilities,” Maresca said, emphasizing the importance of integrating AI with Ulta Beauty’s existing data, systems, and commerce infrastructure. This approach positions Ulta Beauty not just as a participant in AI-driven retail but as an active collaborator shaping how these systems function, particularly through its early adoption of UCP.
Beauty has long been one of the most discovery-driven categories in retail, reliant on education, trust, and personalization. AI interfaces—capable of contextual recommendations and real-time comparisons—map directly onto those needs.
Ulta Beauty’s own framing underscores this: the company describes its role as combining “category authority, curated assortment, and omnichannel experience” with Google’s AI capabilities to create more “practical, personalized, and guest-centered” shopping journeys. In this context, agentic commerce is not just a technological upgrade; it’s a redefinition of how consumers interact with beauty retail. Instead of navigating menus and filters, shoppers articulate their intent conversationally, with AI acting as both a guide and a gatekeeper.
Ulta Beauty’s partnership with Google arrives as AI platforms increasingly compete to own the discovery layer of commerce. For retailers, the question is no longer whether to adopt AI, but how to balance visibility within external ecosystems with control over customer relationships.
By investing in both, Ulta Beauty is hedging its position in a rapidly evolving landscape, one where the boundaries between search, content, and commerce are dissolving.
If successful, the implications extend far beyond Ulta Beauty. The model suggests a future in which beauty shopping doesn’t happen on a website or in a store, but within an intelligent interface that collapses inspiration, expertise, and transaction into a single, seamless moment.