By TOI Tech Desk
Publication Date: 2026-01-13 07:52:00
Google recently unveiled Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), a new open standard for agentic commerce that the search giant claims works across the entire shopping journey — from discovery and buying to post-purchase support. UCP establishes a common language for agents and systems to operate together across consumer surfaces, businesses, and payment providers to enable commerce. So instead of requiring unique connections for every individual agent, UCP enables all agents to interact easily. The protocol has backing from some of the biggest American retailers and payment players including Walmart, Target, Shopify and Etsy.Announced at the National Retail Federation conference in New York, 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,” wrote Google CEO Sundar Pichai on X, formerly Twitter.
Amazon vs Perplexity over AI shopping agents
Notably, there was one e-commerce giant not included in Google’s announcement: Amazon. And incidentally, this AI-led shopping is similar to what Amazon last year sent a legal notice to Perplexity over. And the two companies have been fighting over. In November 2025, Amazon sued Perplexity over AI shopping agents.In a lawsuit filed in Northern California, Amazon sued Perplexity to stop its Comet AI agents from accessing Amazon’s e-commerce website…