Agentic Commerce Protocol
The Agentic Commerce Protocol, or ACP, is an open standard for how AI agents, buyers and businesses complete purchases together. Stripe and OpenAI developed it, according to the protocol's own site, to give agents and businesses a common way to handle checkout and share payment details safely. It's open source, so any business or AI platform can use it.
Source: Agentic Commerce Protocol (agenticcommerce.dev), checked October 29, 2026
What Agentic Commerce Protocol means for your business
The protocol's own site says OpenAI was the first AI platform to use it, in ChatGPT. The business stays the merchant of record, the seller named on the order. It decides what's for sale, how it's shown and how orders get filled. Each AI platform runs its own sign-up, and for ChatGPT, you apply to OpenAI. Stripe's documentation also lists Meta as a creator; the protocol's own pages and OpenAI's launch post name Stripe and OpenAI.
ACP arrived on September 29, 2025, to run Instant Checkout in ChatGPT. On March 24, 2026, OpenAI said it was extending ACP to carry product feeds for shopping in ChatGPT and would let stores use their own checkout. Shopify stores were already in, through Shopify Catalog.
For a small store, we wouldn't start by building to the spec. We'd start with your product data, since that's what these programs read first. If you're not sure whether your store needs ACP at all, or which parts an agent would use, an agent readiness check answers that before your developers build anything.
Last reviewed October 29, 2026. All terms
How AI answers it today
On October 29, 2026, ChatGPT and Google's AI Overview both leaned on the protocol's own site and credited OpenAI and Stripe, as that site does. ChatGPT also set ACP side by side with MCP; Google also cited Stripe's docs, IBM and YouTube.
Our run through ChatGPT and Google's AI Overview, October 29, 2026. A sample, not what every buyer sees.
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