TLDR
Google expanded its Loyalty Customer Match programme to 13 countries and added AI Mode and the Gemini app as surfaces where member pricing can appear, but both AI surfaces are US-only with no rollout date for other markets. Australian retailers can show member prices in Search and Shopping ads but cannot yet reach shoppers inside Google's AI answers.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
What changed in the documentation
Google's Merchant Center Help page, updated on 2 October 2026, extended its Loyalty Customer Match programme to 13 countries. The eligible list now covers the US, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain and the United Kingdom, up from eight markets.[1] The update also added two new membership qualifiers: loyalty points accumulated and completed orders, sitting alongside the existing spending-amount threshold.[1]
The documentation is explicit about what programmes do not qualify. Google Merchant Center Help states: "Anything that would require customers to eventually pay for your program isn't allowed, such as free trials that would require credit card sign ups and membership fees."[1] That rules out freemium structures where a tier converts to a paid subscription.
AI Mode and Gemini: US only, no date for others
Google's updated page states that "Loyalty benefits are also eligible to be shown on AI Mode and Gemini Apps (US only)", which puts first-party loyalty data inside Google's AI-generated answer surfaces for the first time, as Search Engine Roundtable noted on 2 October.[1] Google has not given a date for extending that to any of the 12 other markets now in the programme.
AI Mode is Google's conversational shopping interface, blending AI-generated answers with product listings inside Search. A signed-in member in the US can see their member rate inside an AI-generated answer before ever reaching a product page. No equivalent mechanism exists yet for Australian or European merchants.
A separate developer documentation page, published on 3 October 2026, confirmed that the Merchant API now includes a Loyalty Customer Match Service, letting retailers upload user identifiers and loyalty tier data programmatically for organic personalisation on Google Search without manual feed uploads.[2] That API capability applies across all 13 eligible markets, not just the US.
Australian retailers and local loyalty networks
Australia's inclusion in the Loyalty Customer Match programme predates this update, so domestic retailers using Merchant Center can already surface member prices inside standard Search and Shopping ad placements.[1] The practical change from the October update is the Merchant API path: retailers can now push loyalty tier data through code rather than managing manual feed changes, which cuts the operational load for large programmes with frequent tier movements.
The AI Mode exclusion sits at an awkward moment for Australian retail media. Networks built on loyalty data, including Cartology (Woolworths), Coles 360 and Flybuys, compete for the same first-party data budgets that Google is courting through this programme. If Google eventually opens AI Mode to non-US markets, those networks face a situation where their loyalty data can be matched to a shopper inside Google's own AI answers, a surface the retail media networks do not control and cannot buy into directly.
Google has been accelerating its push to make AI Mode a commerce destination since Google began placing Shopping ads inside AI Overviews in 2025. Loyalty Customer Match is the mechanism that lets a retailer's own data change what a signed-in shopper sees inside those AI-generated answers. Australian marketers are, for now, building the data infrastructure without an AI answer destination to send it to. The Merchant API documentation carrying a date of 3 October 2026 is the most current public indicator of where the build is heading.[2]
SOURCES & CITATIONS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Which countries can now use Google's Loyalty Customer Match programme?
Can Australian retailers show member pricing inside Google's AI Mode?
What loyalty programme structures does Google exclude?
What does the new Merchant API Loyalty Customer Match Service do?
Xaviery Malinao writes for Prompt the Market on how brands and agencies are adapting to answer engines, drawing on Bushnote's work with clients across search, AI search and content.
