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BNPL moves into the conversation layer of commerce

  • Affirm and Klarna are embedding installment payments into Google Search and the Gemini app through Google Pay.
  • Agentic commerce is growing rapidly, affecting consumption habits with each improvement. The tools assisting this consumption need to transform alongside these developments.
Sara Khairi | May 18, 2026
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BNPL moves into the conversation layer of commerce

    Affirm and Klarna embed BNPL directly into Google’s Gemini as shopping shifts from search bars to conversations.

    The checkout button is starting to lose its original place in the buying process as payments move upstream into AI interfaces.

    That shift is now surfacing inside Google’s ecosystem, where BNPL firms Affirm and Klarna are embedding installment payments into Google Search and the Gemini app through Google Pay. The integrations move BNPL directly into AI-driven shopping experiences, where discovery, comparison, and purchasing happen within a single conversational interaction rather than across separate search funnels and checkout pages.

    Affirm is designing BNPL for machine-readable commerce

    Affirm’s move into Gemini reflects how the company sees shopping and lending evolving together inside AI platforms.

    …

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