The Alphabet Soup of Agentic Standards: A Vocab Playbook for Merchants and PSPs
The biggest mistake merchants could make in agentic commerce may be waiting for one protocol to win. There probably won’t be one. The emerging infrastructure for artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shopping is beginning to look less like the early browser wars and more like the internet stack itself, comprised of multiple protocols performing different jobs simultaneously. […] The post The…
The article discusses the complex landscape of agentic commerce, which involves multiple protocols and acronyms such as MCP, A2A, UCP, and ACP. These protocols serve different purposes, such as helping an AI agent discover inventory (MCP), enabling agents to communicate with each other (A2A), recording consumer authorizations (UCP), and establishing the legitimacy of the agent (ACP).
The author suggests that instead of viewing these protocols as competitors, merchants should focus on understanding what each one does and how they can integrate them into their systems. The article also highlights the importance of making products discoverable across multiple AI platforms and the potential impact on merchants if they cannot communicate with major AI shopping platforms.
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