Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), developed with major retail partners, promises seamless AI-driven shopping experiences, potentially reshaping how consumers discover and buy products online while raising questions on privacy and market competition.
The technology behind online shopping is being reshaped for the age of autonomous assistants, with Google proposing a new set of technical standards intended to let AI agents act on behalf of shoppers across the ...
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whole purchase journey. According to reporting by Axios and Google’s product blog, the aim is to make interactions between retailers’ catalogues and virtual assistants seamless enough that discovery, comparison and checkout can happen inside AI-driven interfaces.
Google announced the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) as an open standard co‑developed with major retail platforms and merchants, including Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart, industry coverage shows. TechCrunch and PYMNTS describe UCP as a common language allowing different agents and systems to interoperate without bespoke integrations, and as compatible with existing industry protocols such as Agent2Agent (A2A), Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) and Model Context Protocol (MCP).
Early implementations will let qualifying US merchants offer checkout directly through Google Search and the Gemini app, using Google Pay as the payments rail while keeping the retailer as the registered seller. Financial and technology outlets report Walmart as one of the first large retailers to adopt the protocol, integrating its shopping experience into Gemini so customers can search, assemble carts and complete purchases inside the assistant interface.
Google is also introducing merchant‑facing features tied to UCP. Its product blog and the company’s NRF remarks outline Business Agent, an assistant that can appear in search results, adopt a brand’s tone of voice and provide real‑time product advice, and Direct Offers, a mechanism to surface targeted discounts in AI Mode when a high intent to buy is detected. The company frames these tools as ways to help merchants convert interest into transactions inside agentic experiences.
The proposals emphasise merchant control: Google says the protocols are designed so sellers remain able to manage which information is shared, ensuring agents draw on accurate stock, pricing and promotion data rather than approximations. Industry coverage notes UCP’s design intent is to reduce the need for multiple point‑to‑point connections and to preserve merchant prerogatives while enabling automation.
Proponents argue the standard could lower technical barriers for smaller retailers by removing the need for costly proprietary interfaces, making their catalogues visible to agentic systems and therefore purchasable on new surfaces. Analysts quoted in trade reporting say the change could speed adoption of agentic commerce by simplifying integration across discovery, recommendation and post‑purchase support.
Yet the shift also raises questions about privacy, market concentration and how competition will be managed when assistants mediate more of the shopping flow. Google’s own announcements stress compatibility with existing payments and messaging protocols and position UCP as an open standard, but observers will be watching how broadly the protocol is adopted, which merchants gain early advantage and how regulators and rivals respond as agentic commerce moves from pilot projects into mainstream retail.
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