What is agentic commerce?
Agentic commerce is shopping that an AI agent does on someone’s behalf. Instead of searching, comparing tabs and filling in a checkout form, a shopper tells an assistant what they want, such as “a waterproof trail jacket, size M, under $200”. The agent finds options, compares them and, with the shopper’s approval, places the order.
For merchants, this changes where a sale happens. The agent becomes the storefront the shopper sees. If the agent can understand your products and complete a purchase with you, you can win the sale. If it can’t, it moves on to a store where it can.
What is UCP?
The Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is an open standard for how AI agents and merchants work together. It defines how an agent reads a merchant’s catalog, including products, variants, prices and stock, and how it completes checkout with that merchant directly.
UCP is the standard behind agentic checkout in Google AI Mode and the Gemini app. Because it is a shared standard rather than one company’s private integration, a store that supports UCP once can be reached by every agent that adopts it. [Verify and link: who maintains UCP and the UCP Tech Council.]
UCP is the common language that lets an AI agent browse your catalog and buy from you, without a person filling in your checkout form.
How agentic checkout works
An agentic checkout has four stages. The shopper only takes part in the first one, and approves the purchase before it happens.
Step three is the one that matters most for merchants. An agent can only check out with stores that expose a UCP checkout. Stores that don’t are still visible, but the agent has no way to complete the purchase with them.
Throughout the process the merchant stays seller of record. The agent is a channel, like a marketplace listing or an ad, not a reseller. [Verify against the current UCP specification.]
Why ad feeds only get part of your catalog to agents
Many stores already send product data to shopping surfaces through ad feeds. Those feeds were built for advertising. They usually carry the products you choose to promote, often filtered by margin, budget or campaign. That works for ads, but it means agents only see part of what you sell.
Ad feeds also stop at discovery. They tell a shopping surface that a product exists. They don’t give an agent a way to buy it from you. So an agent can find your product and still send the shopper to a store where checkout works.
What custom-built stores can do
Stores on large commerce platforms may get UCP support from their platform. Stores that run their own custom-built site have three realistic options.
Move to a commerce platform that supports UCP. You get UCP, but you rebuild your store to get it.
Keep your site and build UCP yourself. Your team takes on the endpoints, the checkout flow and every change to the standard.
Keep your site and add UCP on top. This is what CommerceUp does: we connect to your product API, expose your full catalog through UCP and handle checkout. Your site, payments and ad feeds stay as they are.
See how CommerceUp worksTimeline
Frequently asked questions
Is UCP only for Google?
No. UCP is an open standard. Google AI Mode and the Gemini app are live checkout channels today, YouTube has been announced, and other UCP Tech Council members are expected to follow as they launch UCP checkout.
Do I still need my ad feeds?
If they work for you, yes. Ad feeds and UCP do different jobs: feeds promote selected products, while UCP lets agents read your full catalog and buy. CommerceUp leaves your feeds unchanged.
Can a custom-built store support UCP?
Yes. You need a way to expose your catalog and handle checkout through UCP. You can build that yourself, or add a layer such as CommerceUp on top of your product API.
Does the agent become the seller?
No. You stay seller of record. The order, the payment and the customer relationship are yours.