"The principle is that shoppers can use AI agents to create a shopping list, exchange information with merchants, and complete payment transactions, without the need for final, human approval. For example, a music fan could tell an agent to buy concert tickets that go on sale at midnight and then go to sleep, knowing that the agent would buy the number and location of tickets they had asked for (presumably with a price limit)."
"For vendors and payment processors, the protocol provides a verifiable paper trail - or mandate - that they can back trace and check. End users can set up an Intent Mandate, which says what they want and how much they wish to pay for it. If the purchase is taking place in real-time (ex: "find me a pair of white shoes"), then the human can personally approve the purchase by signing a Cart Mandate."
""This chain of evidence culminates in securely linking your payment method to the verified contents of the Cart Mandate," Google wrote in a blog post. "This complete sequence - from intent, to cart, to payment - creates a non-repudiable audit trail that answers the critical questions of authorization and authenticity, providing a clear foundation for accountability.""
Google approved and released the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) to enable AI agents to perform purchases on users' behalf. The system lets agents build shopping lists, communicate with merchants, and complete payments without requiring final human approval for every transaction. Users can configure Intent Mandates to define what they want and set price limits, and they can sign Cart Mandates for real-time purchases; agents can generate Cart Mandates when users are offline. The protocol supplies verifiable mandates for vendors and processors and links payment methods to verified cart contents to create a non-repudiable audit trail aimed at authorization, authenticity, and accountability.
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