The Track Me Fast team uncovers why & how retailers and e-commerce businesses should consider implementing Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP). 

Like it or not, the fact is that the era of agentic commerce is already here. Despite the relatively slow adoption, the research data demonstrates that the agentic commerce market value is expected to exceed 65,700,000,000 USD by 2033 (per Grand View Research), and many tech giants, including Google, have already introduced their proposed frameworks to enable the streamlined purchasing process directly within AI agents. 

Here’s a comprehensive guide to Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), their specifics, as well as potential benefits and nuances of their adoption by e-commerce companies, retailers, and individual brands.

What Is the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP)?

In short, the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) refers to a proposed open-source standard, aimed at streamlining programmatic commerce workflows between customers, retail businesses and agentic AI. 

Essentially, ACP is what enables buyers to browse brands’ or retailers’ products, then complete their purchases and checkout directly via AI agents. 

Key ACP features and benefits:

  • Possible to implement the specification to transact with any AI agent and payment processor
  • The seller remains the so-called “merchant of record”, i.e. retains control over product descriptions, order fulfilment, etc.
  • The configuration is flexible, supporting asynchronous purchases, subscriptions, as well as the more conventional digital goods
  • The checkout config is available via API and MCP
  • The backend implementation is easy with configurable checkout endpoints
  • Virtually any AI agent can make a call to an ACP-enabled checkout, and a retailer/brand can further select to either accept or decline a specific transaction, all transactions from a particular AI agent, or configure their custom logic in this respect. 
  • A product vendor/retailer needs to sign up for a specific agent integration, e.g. ChatGPT, separately, i.e. no automatic inclusion is provided.

What Is the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)?

In short, Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is a proposed standard that covers the entire shopping journey within an AI agent, from discoverability to final checkout and post-purchase assistance as well (e.g. shipment tracking, processing of returns, and more). 

Key UCP features and benefits:

  • Compliant with Model Context Protocol (MCP), Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), Agent2Agent (A2A)
  • Identity linking available via OAuth 2.0 support 
  • Open wallet ecosystem available with provider interoperability
  • Unified checkout functionality includes full-fledged cart logic support, dynamic pricing and tax calculation, etc.
  • The checkout feature, available in AI Mode Search and Gemini app, is currently being piloted for purchases from eligible retailers in the U.S.
  • Support for the “Business Agent” capabilities enables consumers to have a conversation with a brand directly in Google’s Search, via a virtual assistant, asking them about product specifics, if needed. This capability is currently available for selective U.S. retailers and implies that a brand agent’s customizable configuration is available in the Merchant Center. 
  • The “Direct Offers” feature, available in Google Ads pilot, will allow brands/advertisers to provide special offers and discounts for customers in the AI mode. A retailer will need to add their special offers that they wish to feature in their digital ad campaign settings, and then Google will determine the relevant offer for display.

ACP vs. UCP Technical Specs 

From the technical perspective, both UCP and ACP imply significant technical expertise to implement any of the protocols on the retailer’s backend. At the same time, looking at the technical architecture comparison, there are several more flexibilities in the UCP specification, primarily linked to payment processing specs, single- vs. multi-item cart handling, return handling, and more. 

This suggests that UCP may offer more opportunities for e-commerce businesses in terms of onboarding and implementation of the protocol.

Nonetheless, since ACP positions its open-source nature as its key product advantage, chances are that the scope of its free capabilities can potentially outweigh those of UCP’s free tier packages with time. Though this remains to be seen.

Does the ACP and/or UCP Implementation Guarantee Sales Uplift?

The truth is, the adoption of ACP and/or UCP doesn’t guarantee any positive impact on the retailer’s sales rate, let alone guarantee particular product visibility growth in generative AI systems. 

In this respect, both protocols, being relatively new, are at this point in the early stages of adoption by top-tier retailers, which may see some improvement in product discoverability in AI, even though no such outcomes have been publicly guaranteed.

At the same time, some of the experts are already sharing their informed assumptions on what can potentially help improve product discoverability with AI as a whole. 

These include: 

  • Enriched and precisely structured product descriptions and metadata, hence being readable by LLMs faster (e.g. by adopting LLMs.txt)
  • Regularly updated pricing & availability information
  • High customer ratings and positive reviews
  • Broad shipping & return options
  • Overall trust in a particular retailer, and more. 

In this respect, while big retailers continue testing existing agentic commerce protocols, a potentially effective approach for mid-size e-commerce companies, for instance, is to start with the improvement of the brand’s visibility in AI agents, while preparing their developer team to evaluate and adopt ACP and/or UCP in the near future.

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