Google is making a key push into AI-powered shopping with the unveiling of Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), a new open technical standard aimed at letting shoppers buy products directly through AI chatbots and search interfaces. The protocol has backing from major retailers and payment players including Walmart, Target, Shopify, and Etsy.
Notably, there was one e-commerce giant not included in Sunday’s announcement: Amazon.
The Seattle-based company has long controlled the infrastructure of online shopping. But UCP offers an alternative pathway that could bypass Amazon, potentially steering shoppers to competitors at the critical moment of product discovery.
Announced over the weekend at the National Retail Federation conference in New York City, Google pitched UCP as a foundation for “agentic commerce,” a fast-emerging concept in which AI agents help shoppers carry out multi-step tasks on their behalf.
“AI agents will be a big part of how we shop in the not-so-distant future,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said on X.
As AI chatbots increasingly influence shopping decisions, retailers face pressure to build custom integrations for each AI platform. UCP aims to eliminate that complexity by creating a shared “language” that lets AI agents securely access product catalogs, pricing, availability, promotions, loyalty programs, and checkout flows.
We spoke to industry analysts about UCP and the potential impact to Amazon’s grip on online retail.
UCP might not threaten Amazon’s logistics empire. But it could challenge the idea that shopping must begin inside Amazon’s app or website, said Maju Kuruvilla, CEO and founder of Seattle-based agentic commerce startup Spangle.
“This doesn’t change Amazon’s core advantage — price, selection, and convenience,” Kuruvilla said. “This is more of an additional discovery channel.”
Data suggests AI is already influencing online shopping behavior. A new report from Adobe Digital Insights found that AI-driven traffic to retail sites surged 693% year-over-year during the 2025 holiday season, with AI-referred visitors converting at higher rates and spending more time on sites than non-AI traffic.
But analysts caution that traffic growth and checkout partnerships do not equal behavior change.
Juozas Kaziukenas, an independent e-commerce analyst, said many forecasts around agentic commerce assume unrealistically fast adoption. He pointed to OpenAI research showing that only 37% of products returned by ChatGPT’s regular shopping results are relevant, calling that “shockingly low.”
“Product discovery, curation, personalization, and recommendations are still barebones on most AI tools,” he said.
Some argue that even if agentic commerce does take off, Amazon is unlikely to be displaced.
“It’s proven that consumers are drawn to general merchandise retailers that offer value, selection, and convenience,” said Scott Devitt, an analyst at Wedbush. “AI will have implications for retail, but those tenets won’t change. I think Amazon and Walmart will continue to do well.”
Ironically, an agentic commerce boom could actually give Amazon more leverage, said Sucharita Kodali, a retail industry analyst with Forrester.
“If, big if, there does appear to be a winner — and that would be years away — the winner will likely pay Amazon billions for its feed and cooperation, like Google pays Apple,” she said.
Kaziukenas said the growing wave of partnerships reflects a familiar dynamic: an anti-Amazon alliance.
“Everyone is forming partnerships with everyone else — everyone except Amazon,” he said, adding that the trend reflects Amazon’s position in the market. “They can ignore this for now. But it also shows how eager everyone else is to be part of something new to challenge Amazon.”
Amazon has been experimenting with its own AI-powered shopping features, including its Rufus assistant and the “Buy for Me” initiative. The company has not publicly announced support for open agentic commerce standards like UCP.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy acknowledged on a recent earnings call that agentic commerce “has a chance to be really good for e-commerce” and said that he expects the company to partner with third-party agents over time. But he also said agents “aren’t very good” at personalization and often display incorrect pricing and delivery estimates.
“So we’ve got to find a way to make the customer experience better and have the right exchange value,” Jassy said.
In November, Amazon sued Perplexity to stop the startup from using its AI browser agent to make purchases on its marketplace.
We reached out to Amazon for comment on UCP, and we’ll update this story if we hear back.
Google said that starting soon, shoppers using Google’s AI Mode in Search or the Gemini app will see buy buttons on eligible products from participating U.S. retailers. They can check out using payment details already saved in Google Wallet, with PayPal support coming later. Google says retailers remain “the seller of record” and maintain control over customer relationships.
Google’s announcement follows similar moves by other large tech companies. Last week, Microsoft debuted Copilot Checkout, allowing users to complete purchases directly inside its AI assistant. OpenAI, working with Stripe, has developed the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) for completing transactions within ChatGPT.
Emily Pfeiffer, a principal analyst at Forrester, said she’s encouraged to see companies pushing for standards — but stressed that it’s “still very early, the experiences are pretty poor, and adoption is very low.”
“We won’t say that forever, but behavior change takes time and it won’t happen if the shopping experiences don’t improve,” she said.
