Universal Commerce Protocol announced with direct checkout on Google product listings in AI Mode and Gemini

Google unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard for agentic commerce that lets shoppers buy directly from product listings in AI Mode and the Gemini app using saved Google Pay credentials while the merchant stays merchant of record. Merchants opt in via Merchant Center and product attributes.

Announced around NRF in January 2026 with retail and payments partners. By January 22, 2026 merchants reported UCP setup instructions and enablement via supplemental feeds or custom attributes. Google published the merchant-facing UCP checkout help page on March 2, 2026 (see separate entry).