Recently, Shopify and Google co-developed the Universal Commerce Protocol to set the standard for AI agents to connect and transact with any merchant. The protocol is all about making integrations and the purchasing experience frictionless, and provides benefits to every participant in the ecommerce system.
What is the Universal Commerce Protocol?
In a recent announcement, Shopify revealed that the company is accelerating its vision to build the foundation of agentic commerce with the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). The UCP is a new open standard developed by both Shopify and Google to bring commerce to agents at scale.
It helps AI agents both connect with and transact with any merchant, and is designed to work with existing retail infrastructure. The open standard also establishes a common language, enables seamless commerce journeys, and is already endorsed by more than 20 retailers and platforms, including American Express, Best Buy, Mastercard, Stripe, The Home Depot, and others.
What Does the Universal Commerce Protocol Do?
The UCP offers seamless transitions from brainstorming, to product research, to purchases, all without ever having to leave an AI chat. It essentially turns each and every conversation into a potential place to discover and buy products from global brands, simply by asking. The UCP can even complete a checkout on behalf of a customer.
The announcement from Shopify also notes that the UCP powers a new integration that allows Shopify merchants to sell directly in both Google’s AI Mode and the Gemini app. Merchants can sell in this embedded experience and manage it from Shopify Admin. In addition to that, select merchants will soon be able to present exclusive deals right in AI Mode.
The UCP will also make integrations fast and flexible for the requirements of each retailer, and leadership at Shopify wants to make sure that agentic commerce can scale to every possible product that someone may want to buy.
Also, AI agents will be able to represent checkout flows to ensure a straightforward transaction every time. For example, customers will still be able to input discount codes, add loyalty credentials, choose their preferred billing option, and more.
While the product research and buying phases can now take place in AI chats as opposed to on company sites, ecommerce brands still maintain plenty of control over the experience. Companies can choose the services and capabilities they want to adopt, such as product discovery, cart, checkout, and others.
This seeks to remove the complexity surrounding integrations and make it easy for all businesses to participate in agentic commerce in the way they’re comfortable with.
The Universal Commerce Protocol Benefits Everyone
The UCP benefits each platform, individual, and company that’s participating in the ecommerce system. First, AI platforms get to provide integrated shopping for their users, which may keep people on the platform longer, and simplify the onboarding for any business they partner with.
Consumers can enjoy a frictionless experience thanks to the UCP, as they can easily shop and check out in the same place they research and discover products, as long as their favorite brand adopts the UCP.
For payment providers, the UCP also has a modular payment handler design that enables provable universal payments and open operability. Even developers in the space benefit, as the protocol is open-source and designed to be community-driven, giving anyone the opportunity to participate.
Finally, the UCP gives ecommerce brands the power to show off their products in a variety of new places, whether it be in an AI chat, right in Gemini, in Google’s AI Mode, or other destinations in the future. You’re still the Merchant of Record (MoR), still own your business logic, and still have the power to customize your checkout and experience from the start.
Succeeding in the Agentic Commerce Era
Agentic commerce has taken the ecommerce world by storm recently and is only expected to grow even more in the coming years. As a result, businesses need to shift their strategy from solely focusing on human browsing, to also accounting for AI visitors. Some potential strategic changes include:
- Ensuring all content is accurate, detailed, comprehensive, and consistent. Also, don’t simply talk about the features of the product, but also the benefits it provides and what it can be used for.
- Using natural language and conversational language that matches how consumers talk throughout your content, including product details, descriptions, FAQs, and more.
- Because AI agents rely on real-time data to provide to consumers, make sure you’re keeping information like pricing and inventory updated.
- Gathering authentic reviews, discussions, and other user-generated content (UGC), as AI agents may use these to provide relevant recommendations.
Companies that end up implementing these changes are giving themselves the best chance of finding success. On the other hand, businesses that remain stuck in their old ways and don’t adapt to the new era of ecommerce might find themselves lagging behind their competition.
