Google has introduced a new open standard aimed at reshaping how artificial intelligence agents handle online shopping, announcing the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) at the National Retail Federation conference on Sunday, Jan 11.

Developed in collaboration with major retailers and platforms including Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart, UCP is designed to let AI agents operate seamlessly across the entire shopping journey — from product discovery to checkout and post-purchase support. The protocol seeks to replace fragmented, agent-by-agent integrations with a single framework that can coordinate multiple stages of commerce.

Google said UCP is designed to work alongside existing agentic standards such as Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), Agent2Agent (A2A), and Model Context Protocol (MCP), allowing businesses and developers to adopt only the components that suit their needs.

The company plans to roll out UCP in its own products, enabling eligible Google product listings in AI Mode across Search and the Gemini apps. This will allow U.S. shoppers to complete purchases directly while researching products, using Google Pay and shipping details stored in Google Wallet. Support for PayPal payments is expected to follow.

“This is one of the really exciting parts about agentic,” said Shopify CEO and founder Tobi Lütke. “It’s really good at finding people who have specific interests and finding the product that is just perfect for them. This kind of serendipity is where the best of commerce happens.”

Shopify also announced a parallel shopping integration with Microsoft Copilot, highlighting intensifying competition among tech firms to own AI-driven checkout experiences.

Beyond checkout, Google is expanding how brands engage shoppers inside AI search. Retailers will be able to offer real-time discounts during AI-powered product recommendations and access new Merchant Center data attributes to improve visibility across AI surfaces.

Google is also enabling merchants to deploy branded AI business agents directly within Search to answer customer questions — a feature already being used by companies such as Lowe’s, Michaels, Poshmark, and Reebok.