On January 8, 2026—just days before Google’s NRF announcements—Microsoft launched Copilot Checkout, entering the agentic commerce race with its own in-chat purchasing capability.
Copilot Checkout uses PayPal, Shopify, and Stripe for payment processing.
The Competitive Landscape
The AI commerce market now has four major players with distinct approaches:
Platform
Protocol
Revenue Model
Google
Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)
CPC advertising
OpenAI
Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP)
Transaction fee
Microsoft
Copilot Checkout
TBD
Perplexity
PayPal integration
TBD
Why Microsoft Is Entering Now
Despite being OpenAI’s largest investor, Microsoft is building its own commerce infrastructure. This suggests:
Commerce is too strategic to outsource—even to a partner
May 2025: Partnered with PayPal for in-chat purchases, travel booking, and concert tickets
November 2025: Launched free agentic shopping for U.S. users
The Implication
Protocol fragmentation is real. Merchants now face the question: which protocols to support? The answer may be “all of them”—at least until a winner emerges.
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.
