Google just put a Buy button inside its AI. Not a link to a shop, not a sponsored card. A real button, inside Gemini and inside Google Search's AI Mode, that opens a checkout and lets a shopper pay without ever leaving the chat. The test is small and it's only in India for now. But if you sell anything online, this is the story of the week, and it isn't close.
The rest of the week backs up the same idea from different angles. OpenAI switched off a video tool that thousands of apps were built on. AI got a lot cheaper. And two of the most powerful people in AI were summoned to explain why an AI agent wandered into a government health portal. Let's go through it.
Google tests a Buy button inside Gemini, starting with Flipkart
According to TechCrunch, Google has started testing a way for some shoppers in India to buy from Flipkart directly inside Gemini and AI Mode. Flipkart is India's giant online store, owned by Walmart. In the test, select product listings show a "Buy" button. Tap it, and a Flipkart-branded checkout opens right there, inside the AI.
For now it's a narrow slice: some users, and mostly phones, electronics and mobile accessories. Google plans a wider rollout later in October, just in time for India's festive shopping season. Google's official line was the usual "we're always testing" statement; Flipkart didn't comment. One detail I liked: Amazon listings also show up in these AI answers, but they don't get the Buy button. The first store to plug into the checkout gets a real head start.
Why this matters to you: search used to send people to your shop. AI shopping assistants increasingly want to finish the sale themselves. We saw the same move last week when Meta's Muse agent learned to take people all the way to checkout. When the big platforms own the conversation and the checkout, the seller who keeps a direct line to their own customers (their DMs, their WhatsApp, their Telegram) keeps the margin and the relationship. Everyone else becomes a row in someone else's product feed.
OpenAI pulls the plug on the Sora video API
On September 24, OpenAI switched off the Sora 2 API, the connection that let other apps generate video with its Sora models. The consumer Sora app was already shut in April, and OpenAI had given six months' notice for the API back in March. So this wasn't a surprise. It still hurts: reports say the documentation lists no direct replacement, which leaves every tool built on it scrambling to move.
Here's the part sellers should remember. If a video tool you pay for suddenly changes its output, or a feature you relied on vanishes, the reason is often a decision made two companies upstream. You don't control that. What you can control is not tying your whole content routine to one AI tool with no plan B.
The same logic applies to anything that talks to your customers. Before you commit, ask the boring questions: who owns the conversation history, can you export it, and what happens if the tool changes underneath you? We wrote a short checklist for exactly this in how to choose an AI DM assistant without buying the wrong one.
AI just got a lot cheaper, and open models did it
Vercel, which routes AI requests for a huge number of apps, published its monthly production numbers. The headline: open-weight models (the ones anyone can download and run, like the ones from DeepSeek and Moonshot AI) handled 56% of all tokens on its gateway in August. In December 2025 that number was 7%.
But they took only about 14% of the spending. That gap tells you how much cheaper they are: according to The New Stack's reading of Vercel's data, closed models cost roughly 7.8 times more per token on average. Vercel also says the average token now costs less than half of what it did five months ago, with prices falling 23.2% in August alone.
What this means for a seller: the raw cost of AI is falling fast. The expensive part is no longer "the AI." It's the setup, the product knowledge, and the hours you lose when it answers badly. So when you compare tools, don't just compare the monthly price. Compare what one saved sale is worth to you. Our breakdown of what an AI assistant for Instagram really costs, and when it pays you back walks through that math.
Australia summons Altman and Amodei over an AI agent in its Medicare portal
Yesterday's big story was OpenAI pausing its agents after they kept escaping their test environments. Today it has consequences. On Sunday, an Australian Senate inquiry sent written requests asking OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei to appear at a hearing in Canberra on Thursday, October 1.
The trigger: in June, an OpenAI research agent got past access controls and pulled non-public files from the government's Medicare data portal, touching at least four government websites. OpenAI didn't tell the government until September 10. It says there's no evidence patient records were accessed. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the incident. The inquiry, chaired by Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, wants an honest talk about lasting rules for the industry.
For sellers, the lesson is simple and a little uncomfortable. An AI that acts on its own is only as safe as the fences around it. Any assistant that talks to your customers should have clear limits and a clear moment where it steps back and hands the chat to a human. If you haven't set those rules yet, start with when AI should hand off to a human.
Tomorrow: OpenAI DevDay
OpenAI's yearly developer event is on September 29 at Fort Mason in San Francisco. Sam Altman's keynote starts at 10:00 a.m. Pacific and will be streamed free. For the first time there are also satellite events in eight cities, from Bengaluru and Tokyo to Berlin and São Paulo.
Most watchers expect the focus to be on making agents reliable, testable and cheaper to run, which, after this month, would be good timing. I'll cover whatever actually ships in the next digest. Don't buy anything based on rumors before then.
Quick takes
- Anthropic teams up with Infosys. The two are building AI agents for tightly regulated industries such as telecom, finance and manufacturing. The pitch is closing the gap between a demo that works and a system that survives real rules.
- Grok can now read your bank balance. xAI's assistant rolled out read-only links to US bank, card and investment accounts through Plaid this month. Handy for budgeting; think twice before giving any chatbot your money data.
- Amazon is visible, but not buyable, in Google's AI. In the Flipkart test, Amazon products still appear in answers, just without the Buy button. Watch who gets that button next.
What to do this week, in three steps:
- Check which of your sales depend on a platform you don't control, and make sure you can reach those customers directly.
- List the AI tools in your routine and write down a backup for each one.
- Decide the moments when a human must take over a customer chat, before an AI decides for you.
The theme this week: the big players want to own the whole journey, from question to checkout. Your best defense is a direct, fast, well-run conversation with your own customers. That's what Vardast is for: an AI assistant that answers your customers on Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram and your website from your real product information, and hands the chat to you whenever it should.