Shoppers are starting to buy inside AI assistants
Sound familiar?
A customer asks an AI assistant for the best running shoes under $150, and it recommends three stores. Yours is not one of them, because the assistant could not read your product data.
Agentic commerce is shopping where an AI assistant finds, compares and buys products for the customer. It moved from idea to reality in the past year. In September 2025, OpenAI and Stripe launched Instant Checkout in ChatGPT, letting US users buy from US Etsy sellers, with over a million Shopify merchants announced as coming. In January 2026, Google launched the Universal Commerce Protocol, enabling checkout from eligible US retailers inside AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app.
The two protocols that matter
| Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) | Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) | |
|---|---|---|
| Created by | OpenAI and Stripe | Google, co-developed with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart |
| Launched | September 29, 2025 | January 11, 2026 |
| Where shoppers buy | ChatGPT | AI Mode in Google Search and the Gemini app |
| Open standard | Yes; usable with payment providers other than Stripe | Yes; works with AP2, A2A and MCP |
| Backed by | Stripe, with Shopify merchants announced | More than 20 endorsers including Adyen, American Express, Mastercard, Stripe, Visa and Zalando |
| Merchant role | Merchant validates, calculates tax, takes payment and accepts the order | Retailer remains the seller of record |
Sources: Stripe: Instant Checkout and ACP, OpenAI Agentic Commerce key concepts, Google: Universal Commerce Protocol, Google UCP developer guide.
How an AI agent buys from your store
Your product feed is read
The agent learns what you sell from a regularly refreshed feed. Under ACP, that is a CSV or JSON feed with identifiers, descriptions, prices, stock, images and delivery options.
The shopper asks and compares
The assistant recommends products that match the request, using your data alongside other stores'.
The agent calls your checkout
The assistant collects the buyer's details and calls your checkout endpoints. You validate the order, set delivery options and calculate tax.
Payment is taken by your provider
Payment runs through your own payment provider using a secure token, such as Stripe's Shared Payment Token, scoped to your store and the basket total.
You fulfil the order
You accept the order, ship it and handle returns, as with any other sale.
Want your store connected to AI shopping agents?
Get a free consultationHow to get your store ready
- Complete, accurate product data: titles, descriptions, attributes, sizes, prices and images
- Real-time stock and price updates, so agents never sell what you cannot ship
- Structured data on product pages, so AI systems can read them as well as feeds
- Clear, machine-readable delivery, returns and warranty policies
- A checkout that can be called by API, not only clicked through in a browser
- A payment provider that supports agent payment tokens
- Analytics that separate AI-referred orders from other channels
If you run Shopify, check what the platform handles for you in Shopify's agentic commerce announcement. Custom and headless stores need the integration built. Our headless commerce guide covers the storefront side.
Start with your data
The checkout protocols are still expanding by region and retailer, but the first step is the same everywhere: product data an AI can trust. Stores with clean, detailed, up-to-date catalogues get recommended; stores without them are invisible to the assistant.
For help, see our Shopify development services and e-commerce work. Marketplaces face the same shift; see building a multi-vendor marketplace.
Key takeaway
AI assistants are becoming a sales channel. Clean product data, live stock and an API-ready checkout get your store recommended now and ready for agent checkout as it expands.
Frequently Asked Questions
Written by
Sachin Patel
Web & E-commerce Engineering
