What is UCP? Google's open standard for agentic commerce

"Google has launched the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard that enables AI agents to shop autonomously. The protocol was developed with Shopify, Target, and Walmart and forms the basis for new features in AI Mode and the Gemini app. Today's consumers expect seamless transitions between different stages of shopping. To support this, there are real-time inventory checks, dynamic pricing, and instant transactions. Companies have to build separate connections for each platform that supports these features, which creates integration issues."

"Google developed UCP in collaboration with industry partners to address this bottleneck. The protocol standardizes the entire commerce journey, from product discovery to order management, through a single secure abstraction layer. This eliminates the need for companies to maintain separate integrations for each channel. Benefits for the commerce ecosystem For businesses, UCP means they can present their products and services on different consumer interfaces (e.g., AI Mode in Google Search and the Gemini app)."

Google launched the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard that enables AI agents to shop autonomously with partners including Shopify, Target, and Walmart. UCP standardizes the commerce journey from product discovery through order management via a single secure abstraction layer, removing the need for separate integrations per channel. It supports real-time inventory checks, dynamic pricing, and instant transactions to enable seamless transitions across shopping stages. Retailers remain Merchant of Record and can preserve custom checkout experiences through an embedded option. AI platforms can onboard companies with standardized APIs while payment providers gain modular, interoperable payment handling with cryptographic proof of consent. Companies publish supported services in a standardized JSON manifest at /.well-known/ucp to allow agents to dynamically discover available functionalities.

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