Direct offers, AI-mode ads, and measurement for agentic commerce in search and conversational interfaces

Since Google’s landmark February 2026 launch of its Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)-powered in-AI checkout, agentic commerce has rapidly transitioned from a visionary concept into a mainstream retail paradigm. By enabling consumers to discover, negotiate, and complete purchases entirely within AI-driven conversational interfaces, agentic commerce is fundamentally reshaping the retail landscape in an AI-first world. Recent developments across protocols, payments, developer ecosystems, and governance frameworks underscore the accelerating maturation and expanding complexity of this new commerce frontier.

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Main Event Recap: UCP Powers the Rise of Agentic Commerce

Google’s introduction of the UCP-enabled in-AI checkout embedded within flagship AI environments such as Google Search AI Mode and Gemini marked a pivotal moment. This integration established a resilient and scalable architecture empowering autonomous AI agents to manage end-to-end purchase journeys—from product discovery and validation to negotiation and payment—without leaving conversational contexts.

This seamless, hyper-personalized shopping experience is anchored by several key innovations:

• Dynamic AI Mode Ads and Direct Offers that adapt in real-time to user dialogue, enhancing relevance and conversion.
• Embedded payment rails supporting Visa and Mastercard conversational authorizations as well as programmable stablecoin payments through UQPAY, enabling flexible, secure settlement options.
• Multi-agent measurement and attribution frameworks that offer granular visibility into complex purchase paths and ensure fair revenue sharing among competing AI agents.
• Merchant validation tools like the UCP Checker Tool and Store Validation Guide ensure metadata integrity and transactional accuracy—critical for trust and compliance.

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Expanding Infrastructure: WebMCP and Payment Innovations

Complementing UCP, Google’s recent unveiling of WebMCP (Web Model Context Protocol) represents a major leap toward democratizing agentic commerce beyond proprietary AI platforms. By embedding structured, machine-readable metadata directly in ecommerce websites, WebMCP makes traditional retail inventories AI-agent ready and navigable. Key WebMCP features include:

• Standardized product, availability, and pricing metadata accessible at the browser level for autonomous agents.
• Privacy controls that empower consumers to regulate metadata sharing and AI interactions, reinforcing data sovereignty.
• Tight integration with UCP’s metadata governance for semantic accuracy and transactional compliance.
• Lowering barriers for smaller merchants and third-party developers to participate in agentic commerce ecosystems.

Simultaneously, the payments industry is adapting rapidly to agentic commerce’s unique demands. Checkout.com’s recent guidance, “How to build consumer trust in AI agents,” emphasizes:

• Support for emerging protocols like UCP and the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) to capture rich transaction data.
• Development of AI-driven checkout flows that interpret nuanced conversational intent, enabling autonomous orchestration of payments.
• Enhanced security, fraud prevention, and regulatory compliance frameworks tailored for conversational and agentic commerce contexts.
• Deployment of verifiable AI agent identity mechanisms to ensure transparency, build consumer trust, and facilitate auditability.

Notably, the article “AI won't eat embedded payments in SaaS: It will make it more valuable” highlights that AI-powered autonomous commerce will amplify the value of embedded payments within SaaS ecosystems rather than replace them. By enabling AI agents to order directly through integrated payment systems, embedded payments become the connective tissue enhancing AI-driven user experiences across verticals such as food delivery, retail, and services.

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Intensifying Protocol Wars: UCP vs. OpenAI Instant Checkout

The AI commerce landscape is witnessing an intensifying battle between Google’s UCP and OpenAI’s Instant Checkout, two competing protocols vying to become the dominant standard for AI-driven retail transactions. Recent analysis from “Inside Google’s UCP and OpenAI’s race to own AI checkout” reveals:

• Google’s UCP is deeply integrated into Google Search AI Mode and Gemini, emphasizing seamless merchant integration and preserving critical checkout logic like subscriptions, shipping rules, and loyalty programs.
• OpenAI’s Instant Checkout operates within ChatGPT’s ecosystem, aiming to deliver equally frictionless, conversational purchasing experiences.
• Both protocols prioritize keeping merchants in control, resisting approaches that bypass merchant-specific customizations.
• The competition centers on controlling the “glass”—the primary consumer interface for AI agent interactions and transactions—shaping future ecosystem openness and interoperability.

This protocol war is not merely technical but strategic, determining which platform will set foundational standards for AI commerce in terms of user experience, merchant control, and data governance.

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Thriving Developer Ecosystem: Multi-Protocol SDKs and Platform Commitments

Innovation continues to flourish across SDKs and developer tools supporting agentic commerce:

• The Agorio v0.3 SDK now supports the three dominant protocols—UCP (Google/Shopify), ACP (Agent Commerce Protocol), and MCP (Model Context Protocol)—in a unified package, empowering developers to build AI agents capable of fluidly negotiating and transacting across multiple ecosystems.
• Major commerce platforms, including Shopify, have publicly committed to preserving merchant checkout systems, ensuring AI agents respect critical business rules like subscriptions, shipping, and loyalty.
• Other leaders such as Amazon, Salesforce, Criteo, Target, and Roundel are rapidly expanding SDKs and tools enabling fully conversational commerce workflows. Notably, Target and Roundel have pioneered AI-powered contextual advertising within ChatGPT, delivering Direct Offers that dynamically adjust to user intent and dialogue context, significantly elevating engagement and conversion metrics.
• Open-source initiatives such as nguthrie/ucp-mcp-server continue to democratize access to UCP-compliant metadata publishing, fostering innovation beyond dominant platforms.
• Google Cloud’s recent announcement of Model Context Protocol (MCP) support signals growing cloud provider engagement, offering scalable infrastructure and tooling to ease developer adoption.

Together, these developments nurture a vibrant, interoperable ecosystem that reduces concentration risks and fosters experimentation, choice, and platform diversity.

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Governance, Measurement, and Regulatory Landscape

As agentic commerce scales exponentially, governance and regulatory compliance have surged to the forefront:

• Metadata provenance and compliance remain essential for building consumer trust and ensuring transactional integrity, as noted by Deloitte experts.
• Emerging regulations demand explainability, auditability, and transparency for AI agent behaviors to comply with GDPR, CCPA, PCI-DSS, and other frameworks.
• Cross-industry collaboration is critical to address complex liability, privacy, and consumer protection challenges inherent in autonomous AI transactions.
• Google and partners’ multi-agent measurement frameworks provide end-to-end revenue tracking, fair attribution among competing agents, real-time metadata validation, and operational integrity for phased campaign rollouts.
• Active industry debate continues over balancing platform control with open interoperability, a core tension defining the ongoing protocol wars and governance models.

Resolving these challenges is vital to establishing a fair, transparent, and resilient agentic commerce ecosystem capable of earning broad merchant and consumer confidence.

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Forward-Looking Insights: Predictions for the Agentic Economy

Drawing on insights from “Five Predictions for the Agentic Economy - The Business Engineer,” emerging trends suggest:

• The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is poised to become the dominant agent-to-tool standard, akin to a “USB-C for AI,” enabling seamless interoperability among AI agents and tools.
• By 2026, over 75% of gateway commerce transactions are expected to rely on AI agent mediation, embedding agentic commerce deeply into daily consumer behavior.
• Continued innovation in programmable wallets, BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) models, and stablecoins will enrich transactional flexibility and consumer payment choices.
• The evolution of verifiable AI agent identity frameworks will underpin trust, regulatory compliance, and auditability in autonomous commerce.
• Browser-level protocols like WebMCP will democratize AI commerce participation, extending agentic commerce beyond dominant platforms to a broader web ecosystem.
• Cross-sector partnerships among legal, technical, and business stakeholders will be essential to craft governance models that balance innovation, openness, and consumer protection.

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Practical Guidance for Merchants and Brands

In this rapidly evolving landscape, merchants and brands should consider the following best practices:

• Ensure rigorous compliance with UCP, WebMCP, and schema.org metadata standards to maximize product discoverability and transactional accuracy.
• Integrate multi-protocol SDKs and APIs, such as Agorio, to enable seamless conversational commerce workflows across multiple AI platforms.
• Pilot in-AI checkout experiences that reduce friction while preserving merchant-specific checkout customizations and business logic.
• Proactively engage legal and compliance teams to navigate evolving regulatory and risk environments.
• Leverage advanced multi-agent measurement and attribution tools to optimize advertising spend and maximize ROI.
• Adopt emerging agent identity verification protocols to build trust and accountability in autonomous AI interactions.

Early and strategic adoption of these practices will position merchants to lead and thrive in the burgeoning AI-first commerce era.

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Conclusion

Since Google’s pioneering February 2026 UCP-powered in-AI checkout launch, agentic commerce has surged into a dynamic, competitive, and interoperable ecosystem with profound implications for the future of retail. Recent advances—such as Google’s WebMCP browser protocol, payments industry trust initiatives, multi-protocol SDK expansions, Google Cloud’s MCP support, and the intensifying protocol wars—signal a rapidly maturing infrastructure where commerce is deeply embedded within AI-driven conversational contexts.

Merchants, platforms, payment leaders, and developers who strategically invest in metadata compliance, conversational commerce enablement, identity verification, and ecosystem partnerships will be best positioned to shape and benefit from this AI-first retail revolution. As the “race for the glass” intensifies, the retail landscape is being rewritten in terms of technology, trust, governance, and the very nature of consumer engagement. The future of commerce is agentic—and it is arriving faster than ever.