How UCP enables AI agents to discover, purchase, and manage orders from any e-commerce store
The agentic commerce market is projected to reach $190-385 billion by 2030, representing a fundamental shift in how consumers shop online. UCP acts as a universal abstraction layer that enables independent agents, consumer surfaces, and merchant backends to interoperate for a complete commerce journey. Without standardized protocols, each AI agent would require custom integrations with every e-commerce platform, creating an unsustainable fragmentation problem.
An AI commerce protocol is a standardized framework that enables AI agents to interact with e-commerce systems in a consistent, predictable way. Unlike traditional APIs that require custom integration for each platform, AI commerce protocols provide a common language that works across different shopping surfaces, payment providers, and merchant backends.
UCP is not a platform, marketplace, or intermediary—it is an open source protocol. Its core function is translation: it translates the diverse and proprietary languages of global commerce systems into a single, common dialect that all participants can understand. This approach mirrors how the Model Context Protocol (MCP) provides a standardized way for AI applications to connect with external systems.
The emergence of AI commerce protocols addresses a critical challenge in modern e-commerce: APIs play a crucial role in helping ecommerce platforms and marketplaces share product information with AI tools in real-time. By exposing structured data—such as inventory levels, pricing, or attributes—via API endpoints, retailers can ensure their product feeds stay updated and consistent across multiple discovery channels.
The Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is an open standard for integrating commerce with agents, co-developed by Google and partners including Shopify to power agentic commerce. UCP models the entire shopping journey, not just payments, providing comprehensive capabilities for discovery, transaction, and post-purchase support.
The protocol provides the core capabilities for what's common and extensions for everything else. This design philosophy ensures that basic commerce operations work consistently across all implementations, while extensions provide the standard way to support loyalty programs or subscription commerce.
UCP is an open-source protocol designed to ensure secure, seamless shopping across consumer surfaces. The specification and documentation are publicly available on GitHub, allowing any developer or platform to implement UCP support. This open approach contrasts with proprietary solutions and ensures that the protocol can evolve with community input.
Commerce is complex—UCP provides the core capabilities for what's common and extensions for everything else. This architectural decision reflects a pragmatic understanding that while basic shopping operations (browsing, adding to cart, checkout) are universal, specialized features like subscription management or loyalty programs require flexibility.
The protocol brings several benefits that make digital commerce simple. By standardizing the common elements, UCP reduces the integration burden for both merchants and AI agent developers, while the extension system ensures that unique business requirements can still be met without breaking compatibility.
The technical specification for UCP defines how AI agents interact with e-commerce systems through a RESTful API architecture. The Native integration requires you to build a RESTful API that Google can call to create and manage checkout sessions, providing a standardized interface for transaction management.
The protocol's architecture consists of three primary layers:
1. Discovery Layer: Enables AI agents to find products and understand inventory. APIs expose structured data—such as inventory levels, pricing, or attributes—via API endpoints, ensuring that retailers' product feeds stay updated and consistent across multiple discovery channels.
2. Transaction Layer: Handles the checkout process, payment processing, and order creation. The Native integration requires building a RESTful API for checkout session management, providing secure transaction handling.
3. Post-Purchase Layer: Manages order tracking, returns, and customer support interactions. This ensures that the protocol works across the entire shopping journey, not just the initial purchase.
UCP is compatible with the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which provides LLMs and AI agents a standardized way to connect with external data sources and tools. This compatibility means that AI models are not just chatbots, they are fully capable agents that can work with commerce systems.
UCP integrates with existing systems by providing a standardized translation layer. Rather than replacing your current e-commerce platform, UCP sits between your store and AI agents, translating requests and responses into the common protocol format.
UCP Commerce is the universal translator connecting WooCommerce, Magento, and custom ecommerce stores to the UCP protocol for AI shopping agents protocols. This bridge approach means merchants can support multiple AI shopping assistants without building separate integrations for each one.
// Example UCP Discovery Request
GET /ucp/v1/products?query=wireless+headphones&limit=10
// Response includes standardized product data
{
"products": [
{
"id": "prod_123",
"name": "Wireless Headphones Pro",
"price": {
"amount": 199.99,
"currency": "USD"
},
"availability": "in_stock",
"attributes": {
"color": "black",
"brand": "AudioTech"
}
}
]
}Traditional e-commerce APIs are platform-specific and require custom integration for each shopping surface or AI agent. UCP provides a standardized language and a set of functional primitives that work consistently across all implementations, dramatically reducing integration complexity.
Key differences include:
Standardization: While traditional APIs vary by platform (Shopify's API differs from WooCommerce's, which differs from Magento's), UCP establishes a common language that works across all platforms.
Agent-First Design: Traditional APIs were built for human developers building web interfaces. UCP is designed specifically for AI agents, with structured data formats optimized for machine understanding.
Complete Journey Coverage: Most traditional APIs focus on transactions. UCP models the entire shopping journey, including discovery, purchase, and post-purchase support.
Extension System: Extensions provide the standard way to support specialized features like loyalty programs or subscriptions, while maintaining core compatibility.
The UCP specification includes three core components: discovery, checkout, and authentication. Each component addresses a critical aspect of the commerce journey while maintaining consistency across implementations.
Discovery Component: Enables AI agents to find and understand products. APIs expose structured data such as inventory levels, pricing, or attributes via API endpoints, ensuring that product information stays updated and consistent. This component handles product search, filtering, categorization, and inventory status.
Checkout Component: The Native integration requires building a RESTful API that Google can call to create and manage checkout sessions. This component manages cart operations, payment processing, shipping calculations, and order creation. The standardized checkout flow ensures that AI agents can complete purchases regardless of the underlying e-commerce platform.
Authentication Component: Handles user identity, session management, and authorization. This ensures secure transactions while allowing AI agents to act on behalf of authenticated users. The protocol ensures secure, seamless shopping across consumer surfaces.
The discovery component must provide real-time product information to AI agents. By exposing structured data via API endpoints, retailers can ensure their product feeds stay updated and consistent across multiple discovery channels. This consistency is key for AI systems to retrieve and match relevant listings.
AI-powered product discovery relies on structured, machine-readable data. The UCP discovery specification defines standard fields for product attributes, pricing, availability, and categorization, ensuring that AI agents can accurately understand and recommend products.
// UCP Discovery Endpoint Structure
{
"endpoint": "/ucp/v1/products",
"methods": ["GET"],
"parameters": {
"query": "search terms",
"category": "category_id",
"price_min": "number",
"price_max": "number",
"in_stock": "boolean"
},
"response_format": {
"products": "array",
"total_count": "number",
"facets": "object"
}
}While UCP provides the core capabilities for what's common, the extension system enables specialized commerce features. If you want to support loyalty programs or subscription commerce, extensions provide the standard way to do it.
Extensions maintain the protocol's core compatibility while adding functionality for:
Subscription Commerce: Recurring billing, subscription management, and renewal handling
Loyalty Programs: Points accumulation, rewards redemption, and tier management
Advanced Inventory: Multi-location inventory, backorder management, and pre-order capabilities
Custom Workflows: Business-specific processes that don't fit the core specification
The extension architecture ensures that UCP integrates with existing systems without requiring merchants to abandon their specialized features. Extensions are optional—stores can implement only the extensions relevant to their business model while maintaining full compatibility with the core protocol.
Implementing UCP requires building a RESTful API that can be called to create and manage checkout sessions, along with discovery and authentication endpoints. The full specification and documentation are available on GitHub, providing detailed technical requirements.
Key implementation requirements include:
API Endpoints: Discovery, checkout, and authentication endpoints following the UCP specification
Data Structures: Standardized JSON formats for products, orders, and user data
Security: HTTPS, authentication tokens, and secure session management
Real-Time Updates: APIs must expose structured data such as inventory levels and pricing in real-time
For most merchants, building a complete UCP implementation from scratch represents significant development effort. Custom development can take 6 months and cost $20,000 or more, making it prohibitive for small to medium-sized stores.
UCP Commerce serves as the universal translator connecting WooCommerce, Magento, and custom ecommerce stores to the UCP protocol for AI shopping agents protocols. This bridge approach enables stores to become AI-discoverable without building everything from scratch.
Different e-commerce platforms have varying levels of native UCP support. Shopify announced the Agentic Plan with built-in UCP support, making it easier for Shopify merchants to adopt the protocol.
For other platforms like WooCommerce, Magento, and BigCommerce, universal translator solutions can connect stores to the UCP protocol, enabling AI discoverability across multiple AI shopping assistants without platform-specific development.
Upload your product catalog in CSV or JSON format. We generate UCP-compliant endpoints that AI agents can discover.
WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, custom builds—if you sell online, Easy UCP works for you. No plugins or extensions needed.
See which AI agents are discovering your products and how often. Understand your AI shopping visibility.
One-time payment of $199–$999 based on catalog size. No monthly fees, no recurring charges. All future updates included.
Customers buy on your existing store. We never touch your checkout, payments, or fulfillment. Zero operational changes.
Proper JSON-LD Schema.org product data, .well-known/ucp discovery endpoint, and structured catalog browsing for AI agents.