Google announced the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard that allows artificial intelligence (AI) agents to manage the entire online shopping process. They can perform product search, purchase, and post-purchase support all at once without having to involve multiple AI agents for each step.
UCP was developed in collaboration with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, Walmart, and others to unify the way AI agents interact with online stores. It is compatible with other AI agent protocols such as Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), Agent2Agent (A2A), and Model Context Protocol (MCP).
The earliest products to support UCP are AI Mode Search and the Gemini app, which allow users to directly purchase products using Google Pay, with PayPal to be added later.
Also announced today is Business Agent, an AI that acts as a brand representative directly from within Search. Business Agents answer questions about products sold by brands and act as virtual online sales representatives.
The feature will be available tomorrow in the US for brands like Lowe’s, Michael’s, Poshmark, and Reebok. Brands that want to use Business Agent can enable it through Merchant Center, where the AI agent will be trained using their own data and then granted access to UCP.
