Overview
- UCP will soon power native checkout on eligible product listings in AI Mode and the Gemini app for U.S. retailers, using Google Pay details from Google Wallet with PayPal support planned.
- Business Agent, a branded chat experience in Search described as a virtual sales associate, starts rolling out January 12 with early partners including Lowe’s, Michaels, Poshmark and Reebok.
- Google says retailers remain the merchant of record and UCP is designed to interoperate with existing agentic standards such as Agent2Agent, Agent Payments Protocol and Model Context Protocol.
- The protocol was co-developed with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart and has endorsements from more than 20 ecosystem players including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Stripe, Best Buy and The Home Depot.
- Google is piloting Direct Offers in AI Mode to surface exclusive discounts when shoppers show purchase intent, with broader capabilities and global expansion of UCP features slated for the coming months amid competing efforts from OpenAI, Microsoft with Shopify, Perplexity and Amazon.