In short. Google documents product-specific offers and advertiser controls for Direct Offers, while its public pages leave the full pilot admission process unspecified.
Definition: Direct Offers is Google's advertising pilot for merchant-supplied promotions in AI Mode, Google's conversational search experience. As of 17 October 2026, Google documents offer creation for AI Max and Performance Max advertisers, with merchants supplying promotions and setting value limits.
Key facts
- Google's launch announcement describes retailers selecting offers in campaign settings, while Google determines when an offer is relevant to display.
- Google's February Ads Decoded explanation describes testing in the US with a small advertiser group and merchants providing product-specific discount options and unique coupon codes in Merchant Center.
- Google's Direct Offers product page names AI Max and Performance Max advertisers as able to create offers in Google Ads and set value limits.
What account setup and offer information does Google document?
Google's Direct Offers page describes an offer-creation workflow within Google Ads for AI Max and Performance Max advertisers. These are Google's advertising campaign tools; the page abbreviates Performance Max as PMax. It also describes management through Merchant Center, Google's retail product-data service, and Hotel Center for hotel advertisers.
The merchant inputs include promotions, the products eligible for them and guardrails, meaning limits on the offers that can be constructed. The page describes AI Brief as a tool for reaching the intended audiences, with Gemini constructing a customized deal from the supplied material. It lists discounts, giveaways and local coupons among the promotion types.
The Google announcements and product page provide no complete pilot admission checklist, application procedure or current country list.
Who controls the discount?
In Google's February podcast transcript, merchants provide discount options and unique coupon codes for specific products directly in Merchant Center. The merchant therefore defines the available offers, while Google's system chooses when displaying an offer is relevant.
The transcript illustrates the mechanism with a shopper who selects an organic product listing for headphones: a merchant selling that pair can present an additional incentive.
How has the pilot expanded?
Google introduces Direct Offers on 11 January 2026 with a discount-focused pilot and names collaborators including Petco and Shopify merchants. Its May expansion announcement, dated 20 May 2026, still calls the programme a pilot and names Chewy, Gap and L'Oreal among participating brands.
The May announcement adds native checkout integration for merchants using the Universal Commerce Protocol, or UCP, a shared standard for commerce systems. It also describes offers appearing within the AI Mode response as shoppers compare options. Google's product page describes this as expansion from the product viewer into the answer itself.
Hotel offers retain a future-tense description on that product page: travel partners will be able to surface exclusive booking rates during AI-assisted trip planning. Merchants assessing participation therefore need to distinguish the documented retail workflows from that announced travel expansion.
Related terms
- Google Direct Offers
- Google Merchant Center
- Merchant Center advertising eligibility
- Universal Commerce Protocol
FAQ
What should I prepare for the documented merchant workflow?
Prepare the products covered by the promotion, the discount options and the unique coupon codes described in Google's February explanation. For the Google Ads creation workflow, Google's product page also identifies value limits as an advertiser control.
Do I need UCP for native checkout?
Google's May announcement explicitly associates the added native checkout integration with UCP merchants. That integration lets shoppers act on promotions within the purchasing experience on Google.
Sources
- Google, "New tech and tools for retailers to succeed in an agentic shopping era", 11 January 2026
- Google, "Search ads: How Google is reimagining experiences that drive value", February 2026
- Google, "A new generation of ads for the AI era of Search", 20 May 2026
- Google, "Direct Offers", accessed 17 October 2026
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