Google updated its Universal Commerce Protocol, the agentic commerce standard it launched in January with partners including Walmart, Target, Shopify, Etsy, and Wayfair, adding three new capabilities: a Cart option that lets AI agents add multiple items to a shopping cart simultaneously, a Catalog feature that allows agents to retrieve real-time product details like variants, inventory, and pricing, and Identity Linking that gives shoppers the same loyalty benefits and member pricing through UCP-integrated platforms as they would get logging into a retailer's site directly. The protocol is designed to replace one-off integrations between AI agents and merchants with a standardized way to handle product discovery, checkout, and post-purchase support without redirecting users to external sites. PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster argued earlier this week that agentic commerce remains largely a sophisticated search tool at this stage, with the infrastructure needed to actually curate all available options and complete purchases still a significant gap that has not yet been filled.
