Google has announced its plans to roll out an agentic commerce protocol for retailers, UCP, partnering with Ant International to expand AI capabilities.
Following this announcement, the Universal Commerce Protocol, or UCP, was developed as an open standard that establishes a common language for agents and systems in order to work together from discovery to purchase to post-purchase support.
In addition, UCP is expected to first serve as the backbone of a new Google checkout feature that will allow consumers to make purchases in AI Mode in the browser search and in the Gemini app. Furthermore, the UCP-powered checkout will initially use Google Pay as the credential provider, with PayPal being set to also be integrated in the future. UCP will be open and platform agnostic, so it can support any credential provider as well.
Developing agentic commerce solutions for merchants by delivering optimised user experience and end-to-end trust
Ant International has announced that it collaborated on the launch of Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), which was designed in order to establish a common language for agents and systems in order to operate together across consumer surfaces, businesses, and payment providers to enable commerce. With this in mind, instead of requiring unique connections for every individual agent, UCP aims to enable all agents to interact easily, while also being built to work across verticals and being compatible with existing industry protocols like Agent2Agent (A2A), Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), and Model Context Protocol (MCP).
Ant International’s agentic commerce solutions are expected to provide merchants and businesses with three capabilities in order to scale in AI-enabled commerce:
- Control over algorithmic engagement - Ant International will allow merchants to remain in control, giving them the possibility to define how their brand, offers, loyalty programs, and memberships are represented and executed by AI agents. Moreover, brands will be enabled to automate engagement while ensuring a customer experience that consistently reflects their brand identity and service optimisation.
- An agent-native experience, as Ant International will leverage its experience in alternative payment methods (APMs) and its partnerships with digital wallets in order to develop APM-based agentic payment solutions. Furthermore, with the support of Antom EasySafePay, users will be enabled to remain entirely within their AI experience throughout the shopping and checkout journey.
- Trust across the agentic shopping journey - Ant International will ensure that user intent is verifiable, transactions are traceable, and accountability is clear for every participant across the overall payment lifecycle. EasySafePay will leverage Multi-Party Computation (MPC)-based AI risk management and mobile device security systems in order to identify and block fraudulent transactions, while also providing a money-back guarantee for payment partners in cases of account takeover fraud.
Retailers and ecommerce platforms such as Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair,and Target were also present in the process of co-developing the protocol. Walmart co-developed the protocol, as Gemini will automatically include products from Walmart and Sam's Club in the moment when consumers are researching products. At the same time, Walmart will have the capability to recommend complimentary items based on consumers in-store and online purchase history, while also combining orders in Walmart of Sam's Club carts and apply membership benefits.
Retailers are set to remain the merchant of record, and Google plans to roll out additional features and services, such as related product recommendations, loyalty and rewards, as well as custom shopping experiences on Google in the following months. Moreover, through the use of UCP, Google and Shopify will focus on providing a degree of comfort to the merchants and businesses that aim to increase sales, discoverability, and conversions by supplying their product data to Gemini and Shopify for an off-site sale.
