At the National Retail Federation (NRF) conference on January 11, 2026, Google announced the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)—an open standard designed to become the TCP/IP of agentic commerce.
The protocol was co-developed with retail giants including Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart, and has been endorsed by more than 20 companies across the ecosystem including Adyen, American Express, Best Buy, Flipkart, Macy’s, Mastercard, Stripe, The Home Depot, Visa, and Zalando.
Why This Matters
UCP establishes a common language for AI agents and systems to operate together across consumer surfaces, businesses, and payment providers. Instead of requiring unique connections for every individual agent, UCP enables all agents to interact easily.
This is Google’s play to become the infrastructure layer for all AI commerce—not just its own.
What UCP Enables
Full journey coverage: Discovery, checkout, and post-purchase support
Native checkout: On eligible Googleproduct listings in AI Mode and Gemini app
Open standard: Any agent can use UCP, not just Google’s
50B+ products: Already indexed via Merchant Center
The Competition
Google isn’t alone. OpenAI and Stripe launched the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) in September 2025, which is open source (Apache 2.0) and powers ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout.
Meanwhile, Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) provides general-purpose AI connectivity that could serve as foundation infrastructure for commerce protocols.
The Stakes
Whoever wins merchant adoption defines the economics of AI commerce for the next decade. Google is betting that being the open standard—while still monetizing through ads—gives it the best of both worlds.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
