# What Is Google Gemini and What It Means for Your Store

> What Gemini is: Google's AI models, the app that replaced Bard and the engine behind AI Overviews and AI Mode. How it reads your store and what you control.

URL: https://clione.ai/glossary/gemini/
Lang: en

Gemini is a name Google uses for several things at once, and it pays to separate them before deciding anything: the AI models, the app that puts them on your phone and the part of Search that writes answers. We are not talking about the zodiac sign or the cryptocurrency platform of the same name. For a store it matters because **Gemini is both an assistant people ask what to buy and the engine behind Google's [AI search](/glossary/ai-search/)**, and each of those two faces reaches your site by a different route, with different controls.

## What it includes

**The models.** Google introduced Gemini on December 6, 2023, in a post signed by Sundar Pichai and Demis Hassabis, as a model that is **multimodal from the ground up**: it understands and combines text, code, audio, image and video. The first version came in three sizes: Ultra, for the most complex tasks; Pro, for a wide range of uses, and Nano, for running on a device. Bard then got a tuned version of Gemini Pro, and the Pixel 8 Pro was the first phone with Gemini Nano.[^gemini-launch] It is an [LLM (large language model)](/glossary/llm/), the part that writes, with the added ability to read images and sound.

**The assistant.** On February 8, 2024, Google announced that Bard was being renamed Gemini, with a new app on Android and inside the Google app on iOS.[^bard-gemini] When it answers, the Gemini app can link sources and related content: public websites, files you have uploaded or, if you have connected it, Google Workspace documents and email. The sources button appears at the end of the answer or throughout the text, and Google warns that **not all responses include links or sources**.[^gemini-sources]

**The search engine.** When Google launched [AI Overviews](/glossary/ai-overviews/) for all of the United States, on May 14, 2024, it explained that a Gemini model customized for Google Search made it possible.[^google-io-2024] [AI Mode](/glossary/google-ai-mode/) also answers with Gemini models: Google brought a custom version of Gemini 2.5 into Search for both AI Mode and AI Overviews in the U.S., and AI Mode breaks the question into subtopics and issues a multitude of queries simultaneously,[^google-io-2025] which is called [_query fan-out_](/glossary/query-fan-out/).

**Shopping.** On January 11, 2026, Google announced that the [UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol)](/glossary/ucp/) would let people check out on eligible product listings in AI Mode and the Gemini app, from participating merchants, starting in the United States and with plans to expand to other countries. Stores turn it on from [Google Merchant Center](/glossary/google-merchant-center/).[^google-ucp-launch] On May 20, 2026 it added a universal cart that works in Search, in Gemini and in Maps, with Google Pay checkout, for Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and the United States, and the United Kingdom later.[^google-gml-2026]

## How it reaches your store

By two routes, and each has its own control.

**The Search route.** To appear as a link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page has to be indexed and eligible to be shown in Search with a snippet; there are no additional technical requirements. What is shown from your pages is limited with the usual controls: `nosnippet`, `data-nosnippet`, `max-snippet` or [`noindex`](/glossary/noindex/).[^google-ai-features]

**The models and app route.** [Google-Extended](/glossary/google-extended/) is a standalone identifier, separate from the crawlers, used in [`robots.txt`](/glossary/robots-txt/) to decide whether what Google crawls on your site can be used to train future generations of Gemini models and for [grounding](/glossary/grounding/), that is, to base the answers of the Gemini apps and of the Grounding with Google Search service in Vertex AI on your pages. Google makes clear that **Google-Extended does not affect your site's inclusion in Search and is not a ranking signal**.[^google-common-crawlers]

## In a store

A store that sells in the United States and wants to know where it can show up in Gemini, and what it decides, has this map:

| Where Gemini shows up              | Where your pages or products come from                   | What you control                                                                                         |
| ---------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| AI Overviews and AI Mode           | Google Search's index[^google-ai-features]               | [Indexing](/glossary/indexing/) and snippets: `noindex`, `nosnippet`, `max-snippet`[^google-ai-features] |
| Gemini app, answers with sources   | Public websites, among other sources[^gemini-sources]    | Google-Extended, for grounding in the app[^google-common-crawlers]                                       |
| Training of Gemini models          | What Google crawls on your site[^google-common-crawlers] | Google-Extended[^google-common-crawlers]                                                                 |
| Checkout inside AI Mode and Gemini | Eligible product listings, with UCP[^google-ucp-launch]  | Turning it on in Merchant Center, where it is available[^google-ucp-launch]                              |

The table shows what gets confused most: **the first two rows look like the same thing and have different controls**. Blocking Google-Extended touches the app and training; for AI Overviews and AI Mode, the control is in indexing and snippets. To know what Gemini says about your products you have to ask it: Clione, for example, asks ChatGPT and Gemini the questions shoppers ask and shows whether they name the store's products and who takes their place when they do not.


**Blocking Google-Extended does not take you out of AI Overviews or AI Mode.** Google-Extended does not affect inclusion in Search,[^google-common-crawlers] and those two features are part of it: what they show from your pages is limited with `nosnippet`, `max-snippet` or `noindex`.[^google-ai-features] The reverse holds too: allowing Google-Extended does not put you in any answer.


## How to check it

1. **Open your `robots.txt` and look for Google-Extended.** If it appears with a `Disallow`, you have decided your content will not train Gemini models or ground the app's answers; your presence in Search does not change.[^google-common-crawlers]
2. **Confirm your product pages are indexed and allow a snippet**, which is what AI Overviews and AI Mode ask for in order to link to you.[^google-ai-features]
3. **Ask the Gemini app what a shopper would ask** and open the answer's sources, if there are any. Repeat on another day: one answer is a sample of one.[^gemini-sources]
4. **If you sell in the United States or another country on the list, check Merchant Center**, which is where UCP checkout is turned on.[^google-ucp-launch][^google-gml-2026]

## Related concept: Google AI Mode

[Google AI Mode](/glossary/google-ai-mode/) is a Search feature that answers with Gemini models;[^google-io-2025] the Gemini app is a separate assistant. The practical difference is in the route: AI Mode links pages from the Search index that can be shown with a snippet,[^google-ai-features] and the app can draw on public websites, your files or your email, with Google-Extended as the control for use of your site.[^gemini-sources][^google-common-crawlers] Same model, two products, two switches. Its Microsoft counterpart is [Copilot](/glossary/copilot/).

To go further, the [AI search reading path](/learn/ai-search/) orders the rest of the terms, and the entry on [AI Overviews](/glossary/ai-overviews/) explains the other Search feature that writes with Gemini.