Google is making a key push into AI-powered procuring with the unveiling of Common Commerce Protocol (UCP), a brand new open technical commonplace aimed toward letting consumers purchase merchandise immediately by AI chatbots and search interfaces. The protocol has backing from main retailers and fee gamers together with Walmart, Goal, Shopify, and Etsy.
Notably, there was one e-commerce large not included in Sunday’s announcement: Amazon.
The Seattle-based firm has lengthy managed the infrastructure of on-line procuring. However UCP provides an alternate pathway that would bypass Amazon, doubtlessly steering consumers to opponents on the important second of product discovery.
Introduced over the weekend on the Nationwide Retail Federation convention in New York Metropolis, Google pitched UCP as a basis for “agentic commerce,” a fast-emerging idea during which AI brokers assist consumers perform multi-step duties on their behalf.
“AI brokers might be an enormous a part of how we store within the not-so-distant future,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated on X.
As AI chatbots more and more affect procuring selections, retailers face stress to construct customized integrations for every AI platform. UCP goals to get rid of that complexity by making a shared “language” that lets AI brokers securely entry product catalogs, pricing, availability, promotions, loyalty packages, and checkout flows.
We spoke to trade analysts about UCP and the potential influence to Amazon’s grip on on-line retail.
UCP may not threaten Amazon’s logistics empire. But it surely might problem the concept that procuring should start inside Amazon’s app or web site, stated Maju Kuruvilla, CEO and founding father of Seattle-based agentic commerce startup Spangle.
“This doesn’t change Amazon’s core benefit — value, choice, and comfort,” Kuruvilla stated. “That is extra of a further discovery channel.”
Knowledge suggests AI is already influencing on-line procuring conduct. A brand new report from Adobe Digital Insights discovered that AI-driven site visitors to retail websites surged 693% year-over-year through the 2025 vacation season, with AI-referred guests changing at greater charges and spending extra time on websites than non-AI site visitors.
However analysts warning that site visitors progress and checkout partnerships don’t equal conduct change.
Juozas Kaziukenas, an unbiased e-commerce analyst, stated many forecasts round agentic commerce assume unrealistically quick adoption. He pointed to OpenAI analysis displaying that solely 37% of merchandise returned by ChatGPT’s common procuring outcomes are related, calling that “shockingly low.”
“Product discovery, curation, personalization, and proposals are nonetheless barebones on most AI instruments,” he stated.
Some argue that even when agentic commerce does take off, Amazon is unlikely to be displaced.
“It’s confirmed that customers are drawn to normal merchandise retailers that supply worth, choice, and comfort,” stated Scott Devitt, an analyst at Wedbush. “AI can have implications for retail, however these tenets gained’t change. I feel Amazon and Walmart will proceed to do effectively.”
Satirically, an agentic commerce growth might really give Amazon extra leverage, stated Sucharita Kodali, a retail trade analyst with Forrester.
“If, huge if, there does seem like a winner — and that may be years away — the winner will possible pay Amazon billions for its feed and cooperation, like Google pays Apple,” she stated.
Kaziukenas stated the rising wave of partnerships displays a well-known dynamic: an anti-Amazon alliance.
“Everyone seems to be forming partnerships with everybody else — everybody besides Amazon,” he stated, including that the pattern displays Amazon’s place available in the market. “They will ignore this for now. But it surely additionally reveals how keen everybody else is to be a part of one thing new to problem Amazon.”
Amazon has been experimenting with its personal AI-powered procuring options, together with its Rufus assistant and the “Purchase for Me” initiative. The corporate has not publicly introduced assist for open agentic commerce requirements like UCP.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy acknowledged on a latest earnings name that agentic commerce “has an opportunity to be actually good for e-commerce” and stated that he expects the corporate to companion with third-party brokers over time. However he additionally stated brokers “aren’t excellent” at personalization and infrequently show incorrect pricing and supply estimates.
“So we’ve bought to discover a solution to make the shopper expertise higher and have the proper change worth,” Jassy stated.
In November, Amazon sued Perplexity to cease the startup from utilizing its AI browser agent to make purchases on its market.
We reached out to Amazon for touch upon UCP, and we’ll replace this story if we hear again.
Google stated that beginning quickly, consumers utilizing Google’s AI Mode in Search or the Gemini app will see purchase buttons on eligible merchandise from collaborating U.S. retailers. They will try utilizing fee particulars already saved in Google Pockets, with PayPal assist coming later. Google says retailers stay “the vendor of file” and keep management over buyer relationships.
Google’s announcement follows comparable strikes by different massive tech corporations. Final week, Microsoft debuted Copilot Checkout, permitting customers to finish purchases immediately inside its AI assistant. OpenAI, working with Stripe, has developed the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) for finishing transactions inside ChatGPT.
Emily Pfeiffer, a principal analyst at Forrester, stated she’s inspired to see corporations pushing for requirements — however careworn that it’s “nonetheless very early, the experiences are fairly poor, and adoption could be very low.”
“We gained’t say that ceaselessly, however conduct change takes time and it gained’t occur if the procuring experiences don’t enhance,” she stated.
