What we’re witnessing is the emergence of a complete protocol stack for agentic commerce. Understanding how these pieces fit together reveals both the competitive dynamics and the cascading implications for the digital ecosystem.
The foundation layer has effectively been won by the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Launched by Anthropic in November 2024, MCP has achieved industry-wide adoption:
97 million monthly SDK downloads
10,000+ active servers
~2,000 entries in the MCP Registry (407% growth since September)
First-class client support across ChatGPT, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Cursor, and VS Code
In December 2025, Anthropic donated MCP to the Agentic AI Foundation under the Linux Foundation. MCP now sits alongside A2A (Google), AGENTS.md (OpenAI), and goose (Block).
These protocols are becoming the TCP/IP of the agentic economy.
Layer 2: Payment Infrastructure
The payment layer remains more fragmented. Payment processors are choosing sides:
PayPal → Google’s AP2 + Perplexity’s commerce features
This isn’t neutral infrastructure—the payment processors are betting on which business model will dominate.
Layer 3: Commerce Infrastructure—The Battlefield
Two competing protocols with fundamentally different architectures:
Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is a full-journey protocol covering discovery, cart management, checkout, post-purchase support, and loyalty programs. Co-developed with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart.
OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) is checkout-focused—it solves the “last mile” of completing a purchase rather than the entire shopping journey. Apache 2.0 licensed and designed to work across payment processors.
Layer 4: Advertising Infrastructure
Google’s Direct Offers surfaces exclusive discounts when AI determines high purchase intent. Advertisers don’t bid for impressions—they provide offers and let AI decide when to deploy them.
OpenAI’s approach is more cautious. Ads will appear at the bottom of responses, clearly labeled as “Sponsored.” Pro, Business, and Enterprise subscriptions remain ad-free.
Layer 5: Consumer Interface
Both platforms now enable in-conversation checkout. ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout launched in September 2025; Google’s UCP-powered checkout launched in January 2026.
The war is between two visions of how commerce should be monetized in the agentic era.
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.
