Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)

What is UCP?

Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is an open standard developed by Google in collaboration with major retailers including Shopify, Target, Walmart, Etsy, and Wayfair. Announced at the National Retail Federation conference in January 2025 by CEO Sundar Pichai, UCP provides a standardized way for AI agents to discover products, handle checkout, and complete purchases across different platforms.

Think of UCP as the commerce layer for AI agents—while MCP connects agents to tools and data, UCP connects them to the entire shopping experience from discovery to delivery.

Why UCP Matters for Organizations

For retailers and e-commerce businesses, UCP solves a critical fragmentation problem: how do you make your products discoverable by AI agents without building custom integrations for every platform?

Currently, every AI platform (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude) requires separate integrations for commerce. UCP collapses this N×N complexity into a single integration point. Businesses expose their products and services once, and they work across all UCP-compatible surfaces.

For organizations deploying AI agents, UCP enables:

• Product discovery - Agents can reliably find and compare products without web scraping
• Streamlined checkout - Purchases complete within the conversation without redirecting users
• Payment integration - Built-in support for Google Pay, digital wallets, and major payment providers
• Customer relationship ownership - Retailers remain the merchant of record throughout

How UCP Works

UCP defines a common language and functional primitives for the entire commerce journey:

1. Discovery - Structured product catalog exposure with rich metadata
2. Capability Schema - Standardized way to describe what actions are available (add to cart, check inventory, apply discounts)
3. Transport Bindings - Flexible integration via APIs, A2A, or MCP
4. Payment Flows - Compatible with Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) for secure transactions

When a user asks an AI agent to "find running shoes under $100," UCP-enabled agents can query multiple retailers simultaneously, present personalized offers, and complete the purchase—all within the conversation.

Protocol Ecosystem

UCP fits into Google's broader agent protocol strategy:

Who's Using UCP

The protocol launched with support from:

• Retail platforms: Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair
• Major retailers: Target, Walmart, Best Buy, Macy's, The Home Depot
• Payment providers: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Stripe, Adyen, PayPal
• Global brands: Flipkart, Zalando

Notably absent: Amazon.

Getting Started

Documentation and playground available at ucp.dev. Google has published full schema references and sample implementations for developers.

See Also

• Model Context Protocol (MCP) - The tools protocol that UCP builds upon
• AI Agents - Autonomous systems that use UCP for commerce