In a groundbreaking collaboration that could reshape the future of e-commerce, OpenAI and Stripe have jointly launched the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), an open standard that enables AI agents to complete purchases on behalf of users seamlessly. The protocol, announced in December 2025, is already powering instant checkout capabilities in ChatGPT and is poised to revolutionize how consumers shop online.
The Agentic Commerce Protocol represents a fundamental shift in digital commerce, allowing users to discover products through conversational AI and complete purchases without ever leaving their chat interface. U.S. ChatGPT users can now buy directly from over a million Shopify merchants and Etsy sellers, with major brands like Glossier, SKIMS, Spanx, and Vuori already on board.
How the Protocol Works
The ACP creates a standardized framework for transactions between buyers, AI agents, and businesses. When a user expresses interest in purchasing a product through an AI interface like ChatGPT, the protocol orchestrates a sophisticated multi-step process that maintains security and merchant control throughout.
First, the buyer discovers a product through the AI surface. The AI agent then interfaces with the buyer to collect necessary details and payment information. The business receives a structured checkout request, and finally, the payment provider—typically Stripe—securely handles the transaction using specialized tokens called Shared Payment Tokens (SPTs).
These tokens are uniquely scoped by seller, time, and amount, providing an additional layer of security and fraud protection. Businesses maintain complete control over whether to accept or decline transactions, using fraud signals from Stripe's Radar system to make informed decisions.
Open Source and Industry Collaboration
What sets the Agentic Commerce Protocol apart is its commitment to openness. Released under the Apache 2.0 license, the protocol is freely available for any business or developer to implement. The specification is currently maintained by OpenAI and Stripe and is available on GitHub for community contribution and review.
"Our responsibility is to ensure sellers' work can be discovered wherever buyers choose to shop," said Rafe Colburn, Chief Technology Officer at Etsy, one of the first major platforms to adopt the protocol. The sentiment reflects a broader industry recognition that AI-powered commerce represents not just a new sales channel, but a fundamental transformation in how people discover and purchase products.
The open nature of the protocol has already attracted significant industry support. In October 2025, Salesforce announced a collaboration with Stripe and OpenAI to build an Instant Checkout integration guided by the Agentic Commerce Protocol, signaling that enterprise-scale adoption is well underway.
The Agentic Commerce Suite
Alongside the protocol, Stripe introduced the Agentic Commerce Suite, a comprehensive solution that dramatically simplifies implementation for businesses. The suite provides three core capabilities: product discoverability, streamlined checkout and order management, and integrated payment processing with fraud protection.
Merchants can upload their product catalog directly to Stripe, which then syndicates this information to AI agents in near real-time. This ensures that product details, pricing, and availability are always current across all AI platforms that support the protocol. The system handles complex scenarios including inventory updates, dynamic pricing, and regional availability with minimal merchant intervention.
For checkout and order management, the suite leverages Stripe's battle-tested Checkout Sessions API, allowing businesses to apply their existing tax and shipping calculations while maintaining full control over the customer relationship. Crucially, merchants remain the "merchant of record" for all transactions, preserving their direct relationship with buyers and enabling traditional post-purchase engagement.
Market Implications and Projections
Industry analysts are projecting explosive growth in AI-driven commerce. Consulting firm Edgar Dunn & Co. estimates that the value of AI-powered commerce could surge from $136 billion in 2025 to $1.7 trillion by 2030—more than a twelvefold increase in just five years.
PayPal CEO Alex Chriss described agentic commerce as "the biggest transformation since the advent of e-commerce itself," predicting that AI agents could account for 25% of all online sales by 2030. If accurate, this would represent a seismic shift in digital retail, with AI-mediated transactions becoming as commonplace as traditional online shopping is today.
Early adoption data supports these optimistic projections. Etsy reported that transactions through ChatGPT's Instant Checkout feature have exceeded initial expectations, with conversion rates comparable to or exceeding traditional e-commerce channels. The frictionless nature of in-chat purchasing appears to reduce abandonment rates significantly.
Early Adopters and Integration
Major retailers are moving quickly to implement the protocol. URBN, the parent company of Anthropologie, Free People, and Urban Outfitters, has enabled its entire catalog for agentic commerce. Ashley Furniture, Coach, and Kate Spade have also joined the initial wave of adopters, seeing the protocol as essential infrastructure for maintaining competitiveness in an AI-first future.
The protocol's integration with major e-commerce platforms is accelerating adoption. Wix and WooCommerce have announced native support for the Agentic Commerce Suite, meaning millions of small and medium-sized businesses will be able to enable AI-agent sales with minimal technical effort. For many merchants, activation will be as simple as toggling a setting in their platform's dashboard.
Developer communities have responded enthusiastically to the protocol's technical architecture. The specification's support for complex transaction types—including physical goods, digital products, and subscriptions—ensures it can accommodate virtually any business model. Its compatibility with existing commerce backends means businesses don't need to rebuild their entire infrastructure to participate.
Privacy and Security Considerations
While the technology promises convenience, it also raises important questions about data privacy and transaction security. The protocol addresses these concerns through its token-based payment system and by ensuring businesses maintain direct control over transaction approval.
Shared Payment Tokens are designed to be single-use and highly constrained, minimizing the risk of unauthorized charges. The tokens carry metadata about the specific transaction, including the seller, amount, and time window, making them useless if intercepted or misused outside their intended context.
Privacy advocates have generally praised the protocol's architecture, noting that it preserves the traditional merchant-customer relationship while adding AI as an intermediary layer rather than a replacement. Customers maintain accounts directly with merchants, and their purchase history and personal data remain with the businesses they buy from, not concentrated with AI platforms.
The Road Ahead
As 2026 begins, the Agentic Commerce Protocol stands at the intersection of two transformative technologies: conversational AI and digital payments. Its success will depend on continued industry collaboration, technical refinement, and user adoption. Stripe has opened a waitlist for businesses interested in implementing the suite, and the response has reportedly been overwhelming.
The protocol's open-source nature ensures that it can evolve with the needs of the market. As more companies implement ACP and share their learnings, the specification will mature to handle edge cases, new payment methods, and emerging commerce models. OpenAI and Stripe have committed to maintaining the standard through a collaborative governance model that includes input from merchants, platforms, and developers.
For consumers, the promise is simple but profound: the ability to shop as naturally as having a conversation, with purchases completed in seconds rather than minutes. For businesses, it represents both an opportunity and a challenge—an opportunity to reach customers in entirely new contexts, but also a challenge to adapt legacy systems and processes to an AI-first world.
The launch of the Agentic Commerce Protocol may well be remembered as the moment when AI moved from experimental technology to essential infrastructure for digital commerce. As ChatGPT and other AI platforms become primary interfaces for information discovery, ensuring those platforms can facilitate transactions seems less like innovation and more like inevitability.
Whether merchants are ready or not, the future of shopping is conversational, and the Agentic Commerce Protocol is writing the rules for how that future will work.