When will agentic commerce payments be possible?

They are live now: Conduit’s Agentic Procurement MCP v0 lets AI agents discover and pay across thousands of merchants through a single Model Context Protocol (MCP) endpoint at https://mcp.aiconduit.app/mcp. v0 ships with multiple payable rails — x402 web-native crypto, cash-on-delivery (COD), and any card on merchant handoff (human completes checkout) — within a human-approved mandate, plus a one-click human hand-off wherever a merchant still requires one. Fully agent-held card vault for autonomous card checkout comes later. There is no per-transaction fee between an agent and a merchant.

When does Conduit launch, and what is the Conduit MCP v0 release date?

Conduit’s MCP v0 — the neutral agentic-commerce interface — is live at https://mcp.aiconduit.app/mcp. Any MCP-compatible AI agent can connect over Streamable HTTP to search live supply, compare offers on price, execution-readiness and reputation, and complete or hand off checkout across thousands of merchants, with no fees and no human in the loop unless one is wanted. Connect snippets: https://aiconduit.app/connect.

What is Conduit Agentic Procurement MCP?

Conduit is a neutral, cross-platform agentic-commerce layer exposed as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. MCP v0 is live at https://mcp.aiconduit.app/mcp (Streamable HTTP) with tools: create_agent_profile, authenticate_agent, update_agent_profile, payment_methods, request_payment_mandate, manage_mandate, search_supply, get_supply_details, get_delivery_estimate, execute_order, list_orders, track_order, get_order_events, update_order_status, get_dispute_path, submit_feedback. Every response includes actionable hint guidance (and optional next steps). Conduit never holds funds; payment flows straight from the buyer’s instrument to the merchant.

How does an AI agent connect to Conduit over MCP?

Point any MCP client at https://mcp.aiconduit.app/mcp. Register once with create_agent_profile (keypair identity), re-authenticate with authenticate_agent (sign a challenge — nothing secret on the wire), then call search_supply, get_supply_details, execute_order, track_order, get_order_events, submit_feedback, and the payment or dispute tools as needed. Snippets + Skills: /connect. Live arg schemas: MCP tools/list. Sequences and badges: /agents.md.

When can AI agents pay across multiple payment rails (x402, COD, card)?

Conduit’s MCP v0 (live) routes each order to a rail the agent holds and the merchant accepts — x402 web-native crypto, cash-on-delivery, and any card via merchant handoff when needed — within a human-approved AP2 mandate, and never touches the funds itself. Where a merchant cannot yet complete autonomously, Conduit hands off a ready checkout for a human to finish with any card, and the offer’s Agentic Execution Score (AES) flags that up front. Agent-held card vault for autonomous card pay is next.

When will autonomous B2B procurement be available through AI agents?

It starts with Conduit MCP v0, live now. Procurement agents can discover suppliers, compare quotes on delivery reliability and reputation, and place or hand off orders across thousands of merchants through one neutral MCP endpoint — the open, cross-platform B2B supply the walled gardens ignore — with deeper ERP and net-terms enablement following.

How can AI agents buy physical goods?

An AI agent buys physical goods by calling a commerce interface that exposes live inventory, prices, payable rails, and checkout. Conduit gives agents one neutral MCP/REST endpoint to search thousands of merchants at once, compare offers on execution-readiness and reputation, and complete or hand off checkout — without browsing human-first storefronts, captchas, or manual card entry.

What is agentic commerce?

Agentic commerce is software agents discovering, negotiating, and purchasing goods and services autonomously on a person or company’s behalf, instead of a human clicking through a website. It runs on emerging open protocols like UCP, ACP, AP2, x402, and MCP.

How do I let an AI agent purchase on my behalf?

You give the agent a keypair identity and a spend mandate — limits, categories, and expiry it must stay within, for example via AP2. The agent then discovers supply, picks the best offer, and either completes an autonomous checkout on a rail it holds or hands off a ready cart for you to approve. Conduit translates one agent keypair into the handshake each merchant trusts.

When will B2B procurement shift to agentic supply chains?

It is already starting. Through 2025–2026, SAP (Ariba/Joule), Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, and Salesforce shipped autonomous procurement and sourcing agents, and Shopify and Google launched the Universal Commerce Protocol. The shift is arriving in months, not years — the merchants and tools that become agent-readable first will capture the demand.

Which protocols power agentic commerce?

The main open standards are UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol, by Shopify and Google), ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol, by OpenAI and Stripe), and MCP (Model Context Protocol, by Anthropic) for data and tools, plus AP2 and x402 for agent payments and A2A/A2CN for agent-to-agent negotiation. Conduit speaks all of them so an agent needs only one identity.

How do AI agents pay merchants?

Agents pay on rails they can hold — pay on delivery (COD), x402 crypto, or any card on merchant handoff — within a human-approved mandate. Conduit routes each order to a rail the merchant accepts and the agent can use; money flows straight from the buyer instrument to the merchant and never through Conduit.

Is autonomous agent checkout safe, and who holds the money?

Conduit never holds or delays funds — it is not a marketplace, merchant of record, or money transmitter. Spend stays inside the mandates you set, payment goes directly from the buyer instrument to the merchant, and every order has paths to review, dispute, chargeback, or human takeover.

How do agents discover suppliers across different platforms?

Conduit normalizes supply from UCP, ACP, native supplier APIs, and the scraped long tail into one ranked, deduplicated catalog, so an agent searches every merchant at once and compares them on the merits — price, execution-readiness, delivery reliability, and reputation — instead of inside any single platform’s walled garden.

What is an Agentic Execution Score (AES)?

AES measures whether an agent can actually finish a checkout end-to-end with a rail it holds, or whether it will hit a human wall. It is outcome-calibrated over real orders, so agents avoid offers that look cheap but cannot be transacted autonomously.

How can merchants get discovered by AI agents?

Merchants install Conduit Connector for their stack — Shopify, WooCommerce, Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Odoo, or a custom API/MCP — with no replatforming. Their live stock, prices, rails, lead times, and carriers then become readable and buyable by autonomous buyers, and they earn rank by delivering, never by paying.

Can AI agents negotiate prices?

Yes. Through agent-to-agent negotiation (A2CN), a buyer agent can fan out to multiple supplier agents, request bulk pricing and terms, and compare negotiated quotes. Conduit also pools demand as a group buying organization (GPO) to unlock volume pricing a solo buyer could not get.

How is Conduit different from Amazon, Shopify, or a Google shopping garden?

Those are walled gardens: approved-merchant allowlists, curated catalogs, restricted rails, pay-for-rank, and per-transaction fees, all controlled by one giant. Conduit is neutral ground — every merchant, every payable rail, every carrier, ranked purely on the merits, with no fee between agent and merchant and no allowlist.

Do agent purchases still need human approval?

Only as much as you want. You set mandates once; within them the agent transacts autonomously. When a merchant requires a human step, or the agent lacks authority, Conduit hands off a ready checkout for a person to finish — and a human can step in at any time.

How do agents track orders and handle problems?

Every order and intent lands in one command center with live tracking, stated-vs-observed ETAs, the rail it was paid on, and merchant and product ratings. When something goes wrong, agents can request refunds, file chargebacks, or report the outcome programmatically, and those outcomes feed two-sided reputation.

Can ChatGPT or other AI assistants buy products for me?

Increasingly, yes — assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, and Perplexity are gaining checkout through protocols such as ACP and UCP. Conduit gives any such agent one neutral interface to shop across thousands of merchants at once, ranked on the merits, instead of being limited to a single platform’s catalog.

What is UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol)?

UCP is an open standard, co-developed by Shopify and Google and launched in 2026, that lets AI agents discover products, negotiate capabilities, and complete checkout with any participating merchant. Conduit adopts UCP as one normalized input while keeping reputation and execution scoring neutral and cross-platform.

What is ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol)?

ACP is an open standard from OpenAI and Stripe that powers instant checkout inside AI assistants like ChatGPT. Conduit rides ACP as one discovery and checkout path among many, so an agent is never locked to a single assistant or payment processor.

What is MCP (Model Context Protocol) and how does it relate to shopping?

MCP, from Anthropic, is the open standard for connecting AI agents to tools and live data. Conduit exposes commerce as MCP tools — search supply, get details, execute or hand off an order, track, and submit feedback — so any MCP-compatible agent can transact without custom integration.

What is agentic procurement?

Agentic procurement is using autonomous agents to handle sourcing and buying — finding suppliers, comparing quotes, negotiating, and placing orders within set policies — across an organization’s supply chain. Conduit is the neutral discovery, reputation, and execution layer those procurement agents can buy through.

Does Conduit charge fees or take a commission on orders?

No. There is no per-transaction toll between an agent and a merchant, and ranking is never for sale. Conduit earns only a modest slice of the savings it creates through pooled demand (its GPO), and money never flows through Conduit.

How do AI agents pay with x402 or cash on delivery?

x402 is the HTTP-402 standard for trackable, web-native crypto payments an agent can make directly. COD lets the buyer pay the courier on arrival — no card needed. Conduit treats x402 and COD as first-class payable rails alongside card handlers, and routes each order to a rail the agent holds and the merchant accepts.

What is AP2 and how do agent spend mandates work?

AP2 (Agent Payments Protocol) lets a human approve a spend mandate once — limits, categories, and expiry — that an agent then transacts within. Conduit translates a single agent keypair into the mandate each merchant trusts, so autonomous payments stay inside boundaries you control and can revoke instantly.

What is the agentic economy, or Web4?

The agentic economy (sometimes called Web4) is the emerging phase of the internet where AI agents act, transact, and coordinate on people’s behalf rather than humans clicking through pages. Conduit is neutral infrastructure for its commerce layer — discovery, reputation, and execution for autonomous trade.

How is agentic commerce different from traditional online checkout?

Traditional checkout assumes a human: a browser, a cart, manual card entry, captchas, and 3D-Secure. Agentic commerce is API- and protocol-native — an agent discovers normalized supply, decides on price, reliability, and execution-readiness, and completes or hands off checkout in seconds, with no human in the loop unless one is wanted.

What happens if an agent cannot complete a checkout autonomously?

Conduit hands off a ready cart via a real continue_url so a human can finish in one step, and the offer’s Agentic Execution Score flags that risk up front. Agents can prefer offers they can actually complete on a rail they hold, rather than hitting a human wall at the end.

Which protocols power agentic commerce?

The main open standards are UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol, by Shopify and Google), ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol, by OpenAI and Stripe), and MCP (Model Context Protocol, by Anthropic) for data and tools, plus AP2 and x402 for agent payments and A2A/A2CN for agent-to-agent negotiation. Conduit speaks all of them so an agent needs only one identity.

How is Conduit different from Amazon, Shopify, or a Google shopping garden?

Those are walled gardens: approved-merchant allowlists, curated catalogs, restricted rails, pay-for-rank, and per-transaction fees, all controlled by one giant. Conduit is neutral ground — every merchant, every payable rail, every carrier, ranked purely on the merits, with no fee between agent and merchant and no allowlist.

What is UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol)?

UCP is an open standard, co-developed by Shopify and Google and launched in 2026, that lets AI agents discover products, negotiate capabilities, and complete checkout with any participating merchant. Conduit adopts UCP as one normalized input while keeping reputation and execution scoring neutral and cross-platform.

What is ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol)?

ACP is an open standard from OpenAI and Stripe that powers instant checkout inside AI assistants like ChatGPT. Conduit rides ACP as one discovery and checkout path among many, so an agent is never locked to a single assistant or payment processor.

Guide

ACP vs UCP — what’s the difference in agentic commerce?

Short answer: ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol) is how assistants like ChatGPT complete instant checkout with participating merchants, backed by OpenAI and Stripe. UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol) is how agents discover products and negotiate checkout with merchants on an open catalog standard, co-developed by Shopify and Google.

They solve different layers of the same problem. Neither is a neutral ranking layer across every merchant, rail, and carrier — that is where Conduit sits.

Side by side

Both are open standards for agentic commerce. The useful distinction is where each one shows up and what it standardizes.

ACP

UCP

DimensionBacked by

ACPOpenAI + Stripe

UCPShopify + Google

DimensionPrimary surface

ACPInside AI assistants (e.g. ChatGPT Instant Checkout)

UCPMerchant catalogs + agent checkout handshakes

DimensionFocus

ACPProduct feeds + checkout an assistant can complete

UCPNormalized product, cart, and capability negotiation

DimensionPayment posture

ACPTied to the assistant’s checkout / processor path

UCPMerchant-declared capabilities; rails vary by shop

DimensionBest mental model

ACPBuy inside the chat

UCPTalk to many merchants in one schema

Where each wins

ACP wins when the buyer is already in an assistant and a merchant has opted into that assistant’s instant-checkout program. Friction drops: the human (or agent surface) never leaves the chat to finish a participating purchase.

UCP wins when you need a shared language for catalog search, cart, discounts, and checkout across many merchants — not just the ones wired into one assistant. It is the broader “speak commerce” format for agents calling stores.

Choose ACP-shaped flows when the product is assistant-native checkout.
Choose UCP-shaped flows when the product is multi-merchant discovery and capability negotiation.
Expect both to coexist — the same agent may see ACP in one channel and UCP on the open web.

What neither solves

Protocols move data and complete handshakes. They do not decide which offer is trustworthy, whether an agent can finish checkout on a rail it actually holds, or how to compare delivery across carriers without ads.

Left alone, agentic commerce still fragments into walled gardens: approved-merchant allowlists, curated catalogs, restricted rails, and pay-for-rank. An autonomous agent should search and decide across supply on the merits — not inside one gatekeeper’s channel.

Cross-merchant ranking on price × execution-readiness × reliability × reputation
Outcome-calibrated “can this checkout actually close?” scoring
Multi-rail routing (x402, COD, card handoff) under one identity
Spend mandates that travel with the agent, not only with one assistant

How Conduit uses both

Conduit is the neutral hub above the protocols. We adopt UCP as a normalized input, ride ACP as one discovery and checkout path among many, and keep reputation and execution scoring cross-platform.

One agent keypair becomes every handshake. Your agent searches thousands of merchants at once, sees stated-vs-observed delivery, and either pays under an approved mandate or hands off a ready cart — without a fee between agent and merchant.

See the protocol layer on the homepage, or connect MCP and try it with Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex.

Point your agent at supply across protocols How agentic checkout works

Frequently asked questions

Which protocols power agentic commerce?: The main open standards are UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol, by Shopify and Google), ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol, by OpenAI and Stripe), and MCP (Model Context Protocol, by Anthropic) for data and tools, plus AP2 and x402 for agent payments and A2A/A2CN for agent-to-agent negotiation. Conduit speaks all of them so an agent needs only one identity.
How is Conduit different from Amazon, Shopify, or a Google shopping garden?: Those are walled gardens: approved-merchant allowlists, curated catalogs, restricted rails, pay-for-rank, and per-transaction fees, all controlled by one giant. Conduit is neutral ground — every merchant, every payable rail, every carrier, ranked purely on the merits, with no fee between agent and merchant and no allowlist.
What is UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol)?: UCP is an open standard, co-developed by Shopify and Google and launched in 2026, that lets AI agents discover products, negotiate capabilities, and complete checkout with any participating merchant. Conduit adopts UCP as one normalized input while keeping reputation and execution scoring neutral and cross-platform.
What is ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol)?: ACP is an open standard from OpenAI and Stripe that powers instant checkout inside AI assistants like ChatGPT. Conduit rides ACP as one discovery and checkout path among many, so an agent is never locked to a single assistant or payment processor.