The Dawn of Agentic Commerce: Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol Changes Everything
Happy new year, and what a year it’s starting out as. About 18 months ago, I wrote about agentic commerce and dedicated an entire chapter to it. The core prediction was simple: AI and agents would evolve to a point where they’d be purchasing on our behalf. At the time, many people were sceptical, questioning whether consumers would embrace such a fundamental shift. But this week, that future arrived faster than even I anticipated.
Google Announces the Universal Commerce Protocol
Just before Christmas, I predicted it was only a matter of time before Google introduced checkout capabilities in their AI mode or Gemini. The writing was on the wall. We know from decades of e-commerce history that anything making the shopping journey easier and removing friction will win with shoppers. If it works for the shopper, they’ll flock to it.
This week, Google announced the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open-source standard that allows any merchant to have their products discovered in Google Gemini and Google AI mode. But this isn’t just about discovery—it’s about complete checkout functionality. Users will never actually visit your site. Welcome to the era of zero-click conversions.
What Makes UCP Different
The Universal Commerce Protocol represents a fundamental shift in how e-commerce infrastructure works. Here’s what makes it significant:
- It’s truly open source and universal – Unlike OpenAI’s more closed Agentic Commerce Protocol announced last year, UCP is an open standard that anyone can implement and use.
- Merchants retain customer relationships – Crucially, you the merchant still own the client. Once checkout happens, the relationship transfers to you.
- Payment platform agnostic – Google allows all different payment platforms access, making it truly flexible for merchants.
- Built by industry leaders – The protocol was developed with input from Google, Shopify, Target, Walmart, and other major retailers.
Google is positioning this as the USB-C for agentic commerce—a universal standard that will see widespread adoption. The infrastructure is available for any platform to implement, and Google has published comprehensive documentation on their site.
Requirements and Current Limitations
To participate in UCP and have your products appear in Google Gemini and AI mode, you’ll need a Google Merchant Centre account—something most retailers have already set up. However, there are some current limitations:
- Currently only available in the United States
- Even in the US, there’s a waiting list for access
But make no mistake—this is coming, and it’s coming fast.
Shopify’s Agentic Storefront: Another Path Forward
If you’re on Shopify, there’s another development worth your attention. Before UCP even rolls out fully, Shopify has been pushing their Agentic Storefront feature. While it’s been in development for a while, they’re now aggressively rolling it out to stores.
The Agentic Storefront provides an easy way to present your catalogue, brand voice, FAQs, warranties, return policies, and other knowledge base information to various agentic platforms including:
- ChatGPT
- Perplexity
- Microsoft Copilot
- Google Gemini and AI mode (coming soon)
This feature uses MCP (Model Context Protocol), developed by Anthropic, but you don’t need to understand the technical details. The key insight is to treat this as another sales channel—just like you would approach Amazon, eBay, or any other marketplace.
Shopify’s Agentic Plan: A Lifeline for Legacy Platforms
Perhaps most interesting is Shopify’s new “Agentic Plan” offering. This is revolutionary for merchants not currently on Shopify. Over the years, many of us have worked with atrocious e-commerce platforms—I won’t name names, but Magento comes to mind—that are cumbersome, slow, and riddled with problems.
We still have clients on really old legacy e-commerce platforms, and a major part of their conversion problems stems from terrible checkout flows. Agentic commerce solves this by bringing everything into the chat platform. Users never have to visit your problematic site—they can check out directly within the agentic interface.
This could be a game-changer for businesses stuck on outdated platforms, providing a modern shopping experience without requiring a complete platform migration.
The Customer Relationship Question
One critical point to understand: when transactions happen in a chat environment, the shopper discovers products, asks questions about warranties and shipping, and completes checkout without ever visiting your website. Once that checkout is complete, the relationship is handed over to you, the merchant.
This means:
- You still own the customer relationship
- Transaction records remain with you
- All follow-up (“where’s my order?”) happens directly with you
However, this creates a new challenge: your first point of contact with the customer is no longer on your website.
Rethinking Your Post-Purchase Strategy
Since shoppers are checking out in an environment that’s not your store, your post-purchase email strategy becomes absolutely critical. That first order confirmation email—are you even sending one? You should be.
This email needs to:
- Strongly establish your brand identity
- Communicate what your brand stands for
- Provide all essential information for future interactions
- Make it easy for customers to return to your actual website
Remember, they won’t see that Klaviyo popup offering 10% off their next order during their first purchase—so your email sequence needs to handle that relationship building.
The Death of Traditional SEO
We’ve talked about zero-click results for years, but now we’re facing zero-click conversions. The traditional “10 blue links” model is going away. If you’re still spending money on backlinks, I strongly encourage you to pause and think about this shift.
Ask yourself: why would backlinks have any impact on agentic commerce at all? I genuinely want to know if someone has a compelling answer to this question. The fundamental mechanics of product discovery and purchase are changing, and strategies built for the old model may no longer be relevant.
What You Should Do Now
The key here is making all your factual information—product details, FAQs, warranty information, shipping costs—as easy as possible for agents to pull. That’s what Shopify is facilitating with their agentic commerce features.
Here’s what I recommend:
- Set up Google Merchant Centre if you haven’t already
- Join waiting lists for UCP and Shopify’s agentic features
- Review your product information – Ensure all details are complete, accurate, and structured
- Revamp your email strategy – That first confirmation email is now your primary brand touchpoint
- Research the technology – Read the documentation (links in the video description)
- Rethink your marketing spend – Question whether traditional SEO tactics still make sense
The Inevitable Future
To me, this movement was inevitable. When you remove friction from the shopping journey, consumers follow. Agentic commerce removes enormous amounts of friction—no more browsing multiple sites, comparing prices manually, or dealing with complicated checkout flows. The agent handles discovery, comparison, and transaction in a conversational interface.
With Google—the biggest player on the block—throwing its weight behind an open standard, adoption will likely be swift. This isn’t a distant future scenario; it’s happening right now.
The question isn’t whether agentic commerce will transform e-commerce. The question is: will you be ready when it does? If you have any questions or would like to discuss your own website, feel free to reach out to Jim Stewart at jim@stewartmedia.biz
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