Google introduces open standard to streamline AI-powered commerce

On Sunday, Google announced a new open standard called the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) for AI agent-based shopping. AI agents are software programs that perform tasks autonomously. The standard, developed alongside partners including Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart, is designed to allow these agents to facilitate shopping processes like product discovery and post-purchase support across different retailers. Currently, agent-based commerce requires individual connections for each agent. Google’s new protocol aims to replace these fragmented connections with a unified framework, which could facilitate various parts of the buying process.

Google plans to integrate the protocol into its own ecosystem. The company will soon use UCP for eligible Google product listings in AI mode—an AI-powered search interface—within Google Search and the Gemini apps. This integration is intended to let shoppers check out directly from U.S.-based retailers while researching a product. To support these transactions, Google will soon support PayPal as a payment option, alongside existing options like Google Pay. Additionally, Google is allowing merchants to integrate branded AI-powered Business Agents within Google Search to answer customer questions, a tool already in use by retailers such as Lowe’s, Michaels, Poshmark, and Reebok.

The launch comes amid a broader industry push to integrate AI into retail. According to data reported by Adobe, traffic driven to seller sites by generative AI grew by 693.4% during the holiday season, highlighting the shift in consumer behavior. Competitors are moving quickly to capture this traffic; Shopify recently unveiled a similar integration with Microsoft Copilot for shopping to enable checkout within conversational interfaces. Meanwhile, companies like PayPal and OpenAI are working to make sellers more discoverable in AI chatbot results, and startups like The Prompting Company are working with merchants to surface products within AI answers. Commenting on the shift toward agent-driven retail, Shopify CEO and founder Tobi Lütke noted, “This is one of the really exciting parts about agentic. It’s really good at finding people who have specific interests and finding the product that is just perfect for them. Like, I would have never searched for this product, but somehow it found me right on the other side. This kind of serendipity is where the best of commerce happens.”

Why it matters

Google is attempting to set the rules for how AI agents interact with commerce, moving from fragmented connections to a unified protocol that could simplify the buying journey for both merchants and consumers.