Google AI Mode and Gemini carts

The buyer comes back through a link your store builds. If your store knows which of the two sent the cart, add a campaign source to that link and TraceLog counts the visit as AI origin.

What happens

With Google's Universal Commerce Protocol, a buyer can build a cart in AI Mode or Gemini and continue on your store. Google sends your store the cart, and your store answers with a continue_url: the link that brings the buyer back to your site (Google's guide).

Google's guide does not mention campaign parameters on that link. The link is your store's own, so the source can go there. Going live needs Google's approval, and Google decides where the flow is available.

What to add

Add one campaign source to the continue_url, depending on which of the two sent the cart:

• From AI Mode: utm_source=google_ai_mode
• From Gemini: utm_source=gemini

Add only the source, with no medium. A medium can change how the visit is classified: utm_medium=email counts as email, and a paid medium such as utm_medium=cpc counts as paid. A medium already on the link does the same.

If the link already carries a utm_source, TraceLog reads the first one, so one added after it does not count. The cart's own parameters stay as they are.

TraceLog reads the source from the page the visit lands on, so a redirect has to keep it. If your platform or a provider builds the link, they are the ones who can add the source.

When to add nothing

Google's guide defines no field that says which of the two sent the cart. If your store cannot tell, add nothing, and do not pick one by default. A cart with no source can leave the count lower; a wrong source makes it wrong.

Leave the source off any link that also appears elsewhere, such as one in a product feed: every visit through it would count as AI Mode or Gemini.

What this does not cover

• Clicks inside AI Mode. A click on a link in an AI Mode answer arrives from google.com, as organic search, and TraceLog cannot tell it apart from the rest of search.
• Ads. An ad clicked in AI Mode or Gemini counts as paid, not AI origin.
• Visits already recorded. A session keeps the classification it got when it arrived, so adding the source changes none of them.
• Sessions still open. A session stays open until thirty minutes pass without activity; a buyer who returns to one that already has a source keeps that source.
• Visitors who consent on a later page, or never. The session opens where consent is given, so a source on an earlier page is lost. With no consent there is no session.

Where it shows up in TraceLog

In Analytics, the cut by AI assistant lists these sessions as Google AI Mode or Gemini, on Pro and above. On Free, Analytics states how many sessions have a confirmed AI origin, as a fact, without the cut. Either way the number is a minimum: what is confirmed, never an estimate.