Agentic Commerce
Agentic commerce is commerce conducted by AI agents acting on a buyer's behalf — discovery, comparison, checkout, and payment executed inside an AI interface.
Agentic Commerce & AI Agents Glossary
Agentic commerce is the fastest-forming category in commerce — and most brands have no presence inside it.
The buyer is changing. It is no longer a person scrolling a website. It is an AI agent — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity — researching, comparing, and completing the purchase on a person's behalf. Two open protocols already move real transaction volume: OpenAI and Stripe's Agentic Commerce Protocol and Google's Universal Commerce Protocol.
This glossary defines 20 terms covering how AI agents discover, recommend, and buy, and what a brand must do to be visible, trusted, and transactable inside agentic commerce.
Agentic Commerce Terms
Machine Customer
A machine customer is a non-human economic actor — an AI agent or automated system — that researches, selects, and purchases on behalf of a person or organization.
Shopping Agent
A shopping agent is an AI system that completes commercial tasks end to end — interpreting buyer intent, searching catalogs, comparing options, and executing checkout.
Agentic Checkout
Agentic checkout is the transaction step in which an AI agent completes a purchase — cart, shipping, payment — without the buyer leaving the conversational interface.
Agent Discovery
Agent discovery is the process by which an AI agent finds and surfaces a product, brand, or merchant as a candidate answer to a buyer's intent.
Agent-Readable Content
Agent-readable content is content and product data structured so AI agents can parse, trust, and act on it — structured feeds, schema markup, machine-readable pricing.
Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP)
The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) is an open standard from OpenAI and Stripe that defines how AI agents complete purchases with merchants on a buyer's behalf.
Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)
The Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is an open standard from Google and Shopify that standardizes the full shopping journey for AI agents across discovery and checkout.
Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)
The Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) is an open protocol for secure, agent-initiated payments across multiple payment types, including cards and stablecoins.
Shared Payment Token
A Shared Payment Token is a Stripe mechanism, used within ACP, that lets an AI agent securely pass a buyer's tokenized payment method to a merchant for processing.
Model Context Protocol (MCP)
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard for connecting AI models and agents to external tools, data, and systems in real time.
Agent2Agent (A2A)
Agent2Agent (A2A) is a protocol enabling direct communication and task delegation between AI agents without exposing sensitive user data.
Merchant of Record (Agentic)
The merchant of record is the entity legally responsible for a transaction. Under ACP and UCP, the merchant remains the merchant of record; the AI agent is a surface.
Product Feed (Agent Feed)
An agent product feed is a structured file of a merchant's catalog submitted in a machine-readable format so AI agents can surface and transact products accurately.
Agent Manifest
An agent manifest is a published, machine-discoverable file that tells AI agents what a merchant supports — which commerce protocol, capabilities, and endpoints.
Buy-for-Me
Buy-for-me is an agentic-commerce flow in which an AI agent completes a purchase autonomously after a buyer sets intent and constraints.
Agent Shelf
Agent shelf is the set of products an AI agent will consider and recommend for a given buyer intent — the agentic-era equivalent of retail shelf placement.
Agent Attribution
Agent attribution is the measurement discipline of identifying which sales, sessions, and conversions originated from an AI agent rather than direct or search traffic.
Instant Checkout
Instant Checkout is OpenAI's implementation of agentic checkout in ChatGPT — a buyer moves from a product question to a completed purchase without leaving the chat.
Agent Trust Layer
The agent trust layer is the verification, consent, and authorization infrastructure that confirms an AI agent is acting legitimately on a real buyer's behalf.
Agentic Commerce FAQ
What is agentic commerce?
Agentic commerce is commerce conducted by AI agents acting on a buyer's behalf — product discovery, comparison, checkout, and payment executed inside an AI interface rather than on a merchant's website.
What is the difference between ACP and UCP?
The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), from OpenAI and Stripe, bundles checkout and payment and powers Instant Checkout in ChatGPT. The Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), from Google and Shopify with retail partners, covers the full shopping journey and composes with separate payment, tool, and agent-to-agent protocols. Most brands will need to support both.
What is a machine customer?
A machine customer is a non-human economic actor — an AI agent or automated system — that researches and purchases goods on behalf of a person or organization. The term was coined by Gartner.
What is agent-readable content?
Agent-readable content is content and product data structured so AI agents can parse, trust, and act on it — structured feeds, schema markup, machine-readable pricing and availability, and clean entity data.
How does a brand become visible in agentic commerce?
A brand becomes visible by making its products and information agent-readable, maintaining accurate structured product feeds, building source authority that AI agents trust, and supporting the commerce protocols agents use to transact.
5W is the AI Communications Firm, building brand authority across the platforms where decisions now happen — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews — alongside earned media, digital, and influencer channels. 5W combines public relations, digital marketing, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and proprietary AI visibility research to help clients measure and grow their presence in AI-driven buyer research.
Founded in 2002, 5W is recognized as a Top U.S. PR Agency by O'Dwyer's, named Agency of the Year in the American Business Awards®, honored as a 2026 Top Place to Work in Communications by Ragan, and named to Digiday's WorkLife Employer of the Year list. 5W serves clients across B2C sectors — Beauty & Fashion, Consumer Brands, Entertainment, Food & Beverage, Health & Wellness, Travel & Hospitality, Technology, and Nonprofit — and B2B specialties including Corporate Communications, Reputation Management, Public Affairs, Crisis Communications, and Digital Marketing across Social, Influencer, Paid Media, GEO, and SEO. Learn more at 5wpr.com.