Google banks on Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) for agentic commerce
Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is a new open standard designed to allow AI agents to carry out shopping commerce autonomously.
The new standard exists under the Apache 2 open source license.
The technology works by defining “building blocks for agentic commerce” which span from actions designed to drive discovering and buying… onward to post purchase user experiences.
The company says that this will allow the ecosystem to interoperate through one standard, without custom builds.
Google’s wants UCP to change how AI-driven product discovery into frictionless, instant purchases across its search function and and Gemini AI service works.
Described as “core plumbing for agentic commerce”, UCP is aligned to serve AI agents, retail platforms and the payment providers that work with them with technology to underpin the way these services transact.
Avoid custom integrations
The promise from Google with UCP is that this will work without the bespoke integrations that bedevil many fragmented online shopping services.
“UCP establishes a common language for agents and systems to operate together across consumer surfaces, businesses and payment providers. So instead of requiring unique connections for every individual agent, UCP enables all agents to interact easily. UCP is built to work across verticals and is compatible with existing industry protocols like Agent2Agent (A2A), Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) and Model Context Protocol (MCP),” wrote Vidhya Srinivasan, VP & GM for ads & commerce at Google, on the company’s technical blog.
UCP was co-developed by companies including Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart.
As previously reported on Computer Weekly last year, Google Cloud previously launched the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) in an effort to establish a global standard for secure payments initiated by autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agents.
To start this technology’s role in the marketplace, Srinivasan says that UCP will soon power a new checkout feature on eligible Google product listings in AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app, allowing shoppers to check out from eligible U.S. retailers right as they’re researching on Google.
Rest of the world
We can assume that this function will be rolled out internationally across Europe and the rest of the world.
“The feature is built with security at its core: shoppers can buy confidently with Google Pay using payment methods and shipping info already saved in Google Wallet and soon, will be able to make a purchase with PayPal. Retailers remain the seller of record, with the ability to customize the integration to their specific needs, all while helping to capture sales and avoid abandoned carts. In the coming months, we’ll work with retailers to expand globally and add more capabilities — like discovering related products, applying loyalty rewards and powering custom shopping experiences on Google,” explained Srinivasan.
Looking ahead, Google has detailed its hopes for this technology in terms of its ability to reduce “cart abandonment”, where online shoppers get frustrated with the user experience that current sites offer.
