Nicolas Marette publishes a technical guide to prepare businesses for Google's Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) and Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) protocols, which redefine how brands interact with AI agents in the online purchasing journey.
UCP, announced in January 2026, is already operational: as of February 11, 2026, Wayfair and Etsy are using it for direct AI-driven purchases. The protocol rests on six core capabilities: product discovery for AI agents, cart management with complex pricing rules, identity linking via OAuth 2.0, checkout process, order management via webhooks, and vertical industry extensions.
The article emphasizes that schema.org remains the essential foundation of this transformation. Although UCP uses JSON schemas, structured data remains the "cement binding all ontologies together," enabling AI agents to understand and navigate the e-commerce ecosystem. Merchant Center configuration becomes critical: mandatory return policies, customer support information, the native_commerce attribute for payment eligibility, and unique product identifiers.
A major paradigm shift concerns conversational attributes: product FAQs, compatible accessories, substitute products, cross-selling opportunities, and enriched descriptions (for example "wolf" rather than a generic "purple"). This data addresses the discovery patterns of the AI era, in which agents query catalogs with unprecedented granularity.
The author uses WordLift's visual diffusion simulator to demonstrate how a single product image breaks down into multiple search intents, revealing the attributes that AI agents prioritize when distributing products.
The UCP roadmap plans extensions toward multi-item carts, complex promotions, standardized loyalty management, post-purchase support, advanced personalization signals, and expansion into travel, services, digital goods, and hospitality.
The article stresses the importance of third-party social proof: reviews from platforms such as Trustpilot, G2, or Custplace are frequently cited by LLMs and validate the integrity of product data.
The conclusion is a five-step call to action: join the UCP waitlist, configure Merchant Center, train technical teams on UCP documentation, fill in conversational attributes, and audit schema implementations. Marette warns that this transformation is happening faster than previous e-commerce shifts and that brands taking a wait-and-see approach will already be behind by the time full rollout occurs.