The Battleship Arrives: Google's Agentic Commerce Play

The one thing you need to know in AI today | AI Ready CMO

Just Last Thursday, we argued that Google is starting to win in AI. Yesterday at the National Retail Federation, they brought more ammunition to the fight.

The company unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard designed for agentic commerce that works across the entire shopping journey. But more important than the protocol itself is the list of companies behind it: Shopify, Stripe, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, Adyen, Target, Walmart, Wayfair, Best Buy, Home Depot, and over a dozen more. An impressive list, indeed. Much longer and much more substantial than any competitor’s.

OpenAI is a speedboat—fast, nimble, grabbing headlines. Google is a battleship. Slow to maneuver and painful to turn in the right direction, but when it arrives, it does it with force. OpenAI grabbed headlines with Instant Checkout last fall. Google just responded with an open protocol, a coalition of the industry’s biggest players, and deep integration across search, ads, and cloud.