Agentic Commerce Timeline

Search Console generative AI performance report reaches all sites

Google rolled out the generative AI performance report in Search Console to all websites worldwide. The report shows organic impressions from Search generative AI features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, device and country.

Shopify turns on WebMCP tools on every Liquid storefront

Shopify made its online stores expose WebMCP tools that in-browser AI agents can call to search the catalog, manage the cart and go to checkout. The tools are live on every Liquid storefront and the Hydrogen developer preview with nothing to install, covering calls such as search_catalog, update_cart and proceed_to_checkout.

Ninth Circuit vacates Amazon's injunction against Perplexity's Comet agent

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated the preliminary injunction Amazon won against Perplexity's Comet shopping assistant and remanded the case. The panel held that the user, not Perplexity, accesses Amazon's computers under the CFAA, calling the assistant a tool rather than a person.

UCP forms a Food Technical Council with DoorDash, Toast and Uber Eats

The UCP Governing Council finalized the founding members of a new Food Technical Council to govern the protocol's food ordering work. The initial members are Block (Square), DoorDash, Google, Toast and Uber Eats.

Cloudflare splits AI bots into Search, Agent and Training classes

Cloudflare let all customers manage AI traffic by three use cases: Search, Agent and Training crawlers. From September 15, 2026, new domains block Training and Agent bots by default on pages that display ads, while Search stays allowed.

AAA and Integra Ledger publish the Legal Context Protocol for agent transactions

The American Arbitration Association and Integra Ledger introduced the Legal Context Protocol, an open standard for locating, binding and later verifying the legal terms behind an agentic transaction. It is published under Apache 2.0 and launched with founding contributors including Google, IBM, Circle, UiPath and Wayfair.

Similarweb: 56% of AI-influenced visits arrive through search

Similarweb measured where visits come from after a brand appears in an AI answer. For AI-influenced visits, about 56% arrive through search rather than from the AI platform itself.

• Essay: Who wants agentic commerce less: consumers or retailers?

Shopify opens UCP catalog access to any developer with an API key

Shopify's Spring '26 Edition opened its agentic commerce layer to any developer instead of approved partners only. Developers register an agent profile in the Developer Dashboard and call Shopify's public MCP endpoint, and catalog access needs only an API key.

Adyen launches Adyen Agentic API suite for selling through AI platforms

Adyen announced Adyen Agentic, a set of modular APIs for enterprises that want to sell through conversational AI platforms. It has three layers, Agentic Feed, Agentic Cart and Agentic Payments, and Adyen ties it to its support for UCP, AP2 and OpenAI's ACP.

Mastercard launches Agent Pay for Machines for machine-to-machine payments

Mastercard launched Agent Pay for Machines, a service for permissioned, orchestrated payments between AI agents and other machines on its network. The release names more than 30 initial partners and lists credentialing, permissioning, transacting and multi-rail settlement across cards, accounts and stablecoins.

Amazon merges Rufus and Alexa+ into Alexa for Shopping with agentic buying

Amazon introduced Alexa for Shopping, which combines Rufus and Alexa+ for US customers on the Amazon app, website and Echo Show. It keeps Auto Buying at a set price and uses Buy for Me to complete purchases on other retailers' sites with the customer's primary address and card.

Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce and Stripe join the UCP Tech Council

The Universal Commerce Protocol project announced that Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce and Stripe joined its Tech Council, which reviews contribution proposals and steers the spec. They join founding members Google, Shopify, Etsy, Target and Wayfair.

Microsoft makes UCP-ready feeds generally available in Merchant Center in the US

Microsoft Advertising made support for UCP-ready product feeds in Microsoft Merchant Center generally available to everyone in the US. The feeds supply structured product data that Microsoft Copilot uses to surface catalogs, and Copilot Checkout settings went to beta participants.

Adobe: AI traffic to US retail sites up 393% as product pages score 66% readable

Adobe Digital Insights reported that traffic from AI sources to US retail sites grew 393% year over year in January through March 2026, and that AI-referred visits converted 42% better than non-AI traffic in March. In the same report, its AI Content Visibility Checker found that LLMs could read 66% of individual product pages on average, against 75% of homepages.

American Express launches ACE developer kit and Agent Purchase Protection

American Express introduced its Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) Developer Kit and Amex Agent Purchase Protection for Card Member purchases made by registered AI agents. The kit offers five services, including agent registration, tokenized payment credentials and cart context, and the protection covers eligible charges caused by agent error.

Visa unveils Intelligent Commerce Connect to accept payments across agent protocols

Visa unveiled Intelligent Commerce Connect, a single integration on the Visa Acceptance Platform for agent builders, merchants and enablers, now in pilot. It accepts agent-initiated payments over Trusted Agent Protocol, MPP, ACP and UCP and lets agents pay with Visa and non-Visa cards.

OpenAI drops in-chat Instant Checkout and expands ACP to product discovery

OpenAI said merchants can now use their own checkout flows from ChatGPT instead of its in-chat Instant Checkout, and that it is focusing on product discovery. It is extending the Agentic Commerce Protocol so merchants share product feeds and promotions, with Target, Sephora, Nordstrom, Lowe's, Best Buy, The Home Depot and Wayfair already integrated for discovery.

Google adds Cart, Catalog and Identity Linking capabilities to UCP

Google announced three new optional UCP capabilities and a simpler UCP onboarding path in Merchant Center. Cart lets agents add several items from one store, Catalog fetches real-time variants, inventory and prices, and Identity Linking carries loyalty and member benefits.

ShopSimulator: most agent BuyNow errors skip confirmation

Researchers released ShopSimulator, a benchmark that tests LLM shopping agents across full shopping sessions. Nearly 80% of BuyNow errors were purchases made without confirming details or after the user had explicitly rejected the item.

• Essay: Who wants agentic commerce less: consumers or retailers?
• Essay: Hello shoppers, welcome to the world of harness

Google introduces the Universal Commerce Protocol at NRF 2026

Sundar Pichai introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) at NRF 2026 as an open standard for agentic commerce, starting with native checkout in AI Mode and Gemini. Google built UCP with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart, more than 20 others endorsed it, and the retailer remains the merchant of record.

• Essay: Muse, UCP and ACP check out three different ways. Merchants get the same deal from all of them.

Stripe powers Copilot Checkout in Microsoft Copilot over ACP

Stripe announced that it helps power Copilot Checkout, which lets US Copilot users buy from Etsy sellers, Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie inside the chat. Stripe reaches the seller over the Agentic Commerce Protocol and passes a Shared Payment Token, which the seller can process with Stripe or another provider.

Anthropic donates MCP to the new Agentic AI Foundation at the Linux Foundation

Anthropic donated the Model Context Protocol to the Agentic AI Foundation, a directed fund under the Linux Foundation co-founded by Anthropic, Block and OpenAI. MCP joins Block's goose and OpenAI's AGENTS.md as founding projects, and Anthropic cites more than 10,000 active public MCP servers.

PayPal adopts ACP to bring its wallet and merchants into ChatGPT

PayPal announced that it will adopt the Agentic Commerce Protocol so ChatGPT users can pay with PayPal in Instant Checkout. PayPal will process card payments through the delegated payments API and, from 2026, bring merchant catalogs into ChatGPT through its own ACP server.

Visa and Cloudflare release Trusted Agent Protocol so merchants can verify AI agents

Visa released the Trusted Agent Protocol, developed with Cloudflare, so merchants can tell approved shopping agents apart from malicious bots. Built on HTTP Message Signatures, it uses agent-specific cryptographic signatures to carry agent intent, consumer recognition and optional payment data.

Walmart partners with OpenAI to sell through ChatGPT Instant Checkout

Walmart announced a partnership with OpenAI that will let Walmart customers and Sam's Club members shop through ChatGPT. The first step is buying Walmart items with Instant Checkout inside the chat.

OpenAI and Stripe launch Instant Checkout in ChatGPT and release ACP

Stripe and OpenAI launched Instant Checkout in ChatGPT, built on the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), an open standard the two companies developed together. US users could buy from Etsy sellers first, with over a million Shopify merchants to follow, and Stripe issues a Shared Payment Token scoped to one merchant and one cart total.

• Essay: Muse, UCP and ACP check out three different ways. Merchants get the same deal from all of them.

Google announces AP2, a payments protocol built on signed user mandates

Google announced the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), an open protocol for agent-led payments that works as an extension of A2A and MCP. AP2 records user approval in cryptographically signed Intent and Cart Mandates, and Google launched it with more than 60 organizations, including Mastercard, American Express, PayPal and Coinbase.

ACES study finds AI shopping agents show position bias and penalize sponsored tags

Researchers posted a study to arXiv that uses ACES, a provider-agnostic framework, to audit how AI agents choose products in a simulated marketplace. Agents showed position biases that vary by model, penalized sponsored tags, rewarded platform endorsements, and lost share to sellers whose agent rewrote product descriptions.

Perplexity picks PayPal and Venmo for in-chat checkout in Perplexity Pro

Perplexity announced that PayPal will power agentic commerce in Perplexity Pro, letting US users check out with PayPal or Venmo inside the chat starting summer 2025. PayPal handles payment, shipping, tracking and invoicing through account linking and a tokenized wallet, and the deal reaches its 430 million-plus active accounts.

Visa opens its network to AI agents with Intelligent Commerce and AI-Ready Cards

Visa announced Visa Intelligent Commerce at its Global Product Drop, a set of APIs and a partner program that let AI agents find and pay for goods. Its AI-Ready Cards swap card details for tokenized credentials, and the named collaborators are Anthropic, IBM, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, Perplexity, Samsung and Stripe.

• Earlier: Mastercard launches Agent Pay with Agentic Tokens and Microsoft as first AI partner

Mastercard launches Agent Pay with Agentic Tokens and Microsoft as first AI partner

Mastercard launched Agent Pay, an agentic payments program, and named Microsoft as its first AI platform collaborator. The program issues Mastercard Agentic Tokens built on its existing tokenization and requires AI agents to be registered and verified before they can pay for users.

• Earlier: Visa opens its network to AI agents with Intelligent Commerce and AI-Ready Cards

ChatGPT search starts showing product results with images, prices and buy links

When a question shows shopping intent, ChatGPT search returns product options with images, details and links to sites where the user can buy. OpenAI says the results are selected independently and are not ads, and they draw on structured metadata from first-party and third-party providers.

• Earlier: OpenAI and Stripe launch Instant Checkout in ChatGPT and release ACP

Google launches A2A, an open protocol for agents to work with other agents

Google launched Agent2Agent (A2A), an open protocol that lets agents from different vendors connect with each other, with more than 50 technology partners including PayPal, Salesforce and SAP. Google describes it as a complement to MCP: MCP gives one agent tools and context, and A2A lets that agent work with other agents.

• Earlier: Anthropic open-sources MCP, a standard for connecting AI assistants to tools and data
• Earlier: Google announces AP2, a payments protocol built on signed user mandates

Amazon tests Buy for Me, an agent that checks out on other brands' sites

Amazon began testing Buy for Me with a subset of U.S. app customers, for products Amazon does not sell itself. Using agentic AI built on Amazon Nova and Anthropic's Claude models, Amazon completes checkout on the brand's own website by passing the customer's encrypted name, address and payment details.

• Earlier: Amazon launches Rufus, a shopping assistant trained on its catalog, in beta
• Earlier: Amazon merges Rufus and Alexa+ into Alexa for Shopping with agentic buying

OpenAI launches Operator, an agent that shops in its own browser

OpenAI released Operator to Pro users in the U.S., an agent that types, clicks and scrolls through websites in its own browser to finish tasks such as ordering groceries. It hands control back to the user for logins, payment details and CAPTCHAs, and OpenAI built it with DoorDash, Instacart, OpenTable, Priceline, StubHub, Thumbtack and Uber.

• Earlier: Anthropic releases computer use, letting Claude click and type on a screen

Anthropic open-sources MCP, a standard for connecting AI assistants to tools and data

Anthropic open-sourced the Model Context Protocol, which lets AI applications connect to outside systems through MCP servers instead of a custom integration for each data source. Block and Apollo were early adopters, and retailers including Walmart and DoorDash later used MCP to expose shopping actions to outside agents.

• Earlier: Anthropic donates MCP to the new Agentic AI Foundation at the Linux Foundation
• Earlier: Walmart opens an MCP gateway and agent profiles for third-party shopping agents
• Earlier: DoorDash ships an MCP interface so external AI agents can order

Perplexity adds Buy with Pro checkout and a free merchant program

Perplexity launched Buy with Pro, which lets Pro subscribers in the U.S. save shipping and billing details and place an order without leaving Perplexity, with free shipping on those orders. It also opened a free Merchant Program that gives retailers API access and a dashboard of search and shopping trends for their products.

• Earlier: Perplexity picks PayPal and Venmo for in-chat checkout in Perplexity Pro

Stripe releases an agent toolkit that gives agents single-use virtual cards

Stripe released its agent toolkit, which gives agents built with Vercel's AI SDK, LangChain or CrewAI access to the Stripe API. Through Stripe Issuing, an agent can get a single-use virtual card for a purchase, so it can pay without holding the user's own card.

• Earlier: OpenAI and Stripe launch Instant Checkout in ChatGPT and release ACP
• Earlier: Stripe Link pays for Meta Muse purchases with single-use cards

Anthropic releases computer use, letting Claude click and type on a screen

Anthropic released computer use in public beta on its API, letting developers direct Claude 3.5 Sonnet to look at a screen, move a cursor, click buttons and type text. It lets an agent work through sites that offer no API, and DoorDash was among the first companies testing it.

• Earlier: OpenAI launches Operator, an agent that shops in its own browser

Answer.AI proposes llms.txt, a Markdown index file for language models

Answer.AI proposed that websites publish a /llms.txt Markdown file listing the content a language model should read. The format requires only an H1 title, then a summary, details and H2 link lists, and links under an "Optional" heading can be skipped when context is short.

Google rolls out AI Overviews to everyone in U.S. Search

Google began rolling out AI Overviews, answers written by a Gemini model customized for Search, to everyone in the U.S. Google said hundreds of millions of users would get them that week and expected to reach over a billion people by the end of 2024.

• Essay: Google's Q3: query growth and Search revenue are two different numbers

Amazon launches Rufus, a shopping assistant trained on its catalog, in beta

Amazon put Rufus, a shopping assistant trained on its product catalog and information from across the web, into beta for a small subset of U.S. customers in its mobile app. Rufus answers product questions and makes comparisons and recommendations inside Amazon's own store, and Amazon renamed it Alexa for Shopping on May 13, 2026.

• Earlier: Amazon merges Rufus and Alexa+ into Alexa for Shopping with agentic buying
• Earlier: Amazon tests Buy for Me, an agent that checks out on other brands' sites

Shopify introduces Sidekick, an AI assistant that helps merchants run their store

At its Summer '23 Edition, Shopify introduced Sidekick, an AI commerce assistant that helps merchants start, run and grow a business from the Shopify admin. It is an agent for the seller, not the shopper: it works on the store's own data and buys nothing on a customer's behalf.

ChatGPT plugins let the model call Instacart, Klarna, Shopify and OpenTable

OpenAI added plugins to ChatGPT, third-party tools the model can call, starting with 12 plugins from companies including Expedia, Instacart, KAYAK, Klarna, OpenTable and Shopify. In June 2023 OpenAI added function calling to its API, so any developer can have the model output a structured call to an outside tool.

Anthropic opens Claude to businesses through a chat interface and an API

Anthropic made Claude and the lighter Claude Instant available through a chat interface and an API, after a closed alpha with partners including Notion, Quora and DuckDuckGo. It was an assistant, not a shopping agent, but the same model family later powered computer use and parts of Amazon's Buy for Me.

• Earlier: Anthropic releases computer use, letting Claude click and type on a screen

OpenAI releases ChatGPT as a free research preview

OpenAI released ChatGPT, a chat model fine-tuned from the GPT-3.5 series, as a free research preview. It could not shop or buy anything, but it is the chat interface that the later shopping and checkout features on this timeline were built into.