What is agentic commerce?

Definition

Agentic commerce refers to purchases made, fully or partly, by an AI agent acting on someone's behalf: it understands what the person is looking for, finds products, compares offers, can discuss terms and, with their approval, places the order. The buyer states a need ("noise-cancelling headphones under €250") instead of browsing from site to site themselves.

This is not a distant idea: since late 2025, several open standards already let assistants such as ChatGPT or Claude query stores and complete purchases.

What changes compared with classic e-commerce

In classic e-commerce, the human does all the work: search, open ten tabs, compare, fill the cart, pay. The site is designed to be read by a person.

In agentic commerce, part of that work moves to software. This shifts three things:

• the reader of your store changes: an agent reads your product data, prices and terms, not your layout;
• comparison becomes instant: an agent can query several sellers in seconds;
• negotiation becomes possible again: an agent can ask for a better offer on its user's behalf, something a busy buyer rarely does online.

The protocols that make it possible

Several open standards, published between late 2024 and late 2025, form the technical foundation of agentic commerce:

• MCP (Model Context Protocol), published by Anthropic in November 2024: it lets an AI assistant use external tools and data sources, such as a store's catalogue or pricing engine.
• A2A (Agent2Agent), introduced by Google in April 2025 and handed over to the Linux Foundation in June 2025: it lets agents from different vendors discover each other and work together, for example a buyer's agent and a seller's agent.
• AP2 (Agent Payments Protocol), announced by Google in September 2025 with more than 60 payments partners: it governs agent-initiated payments, with signed "mandates" that prove what the user authorised (the cart, the maximum price).
• ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol), published by OpenAI and Stripe in September 2025: it enables buying directly in ChatGPT through Instant Checkout, launched first in the United States.

These protocols complement each other: MCP and A2A organise the conversation between the agent and the store, AP2 and ACP secure the payment.

A concrete example

Someone asks their assistant: "find me Bose headphones under €250". The assistant queries compatible stores, spots a model at €299, asks the seller whether they can do better, gets an offer at €239.99, presents it to its user, then completes the purchase with a single-use discount code once the user accepts.

The human did two things: state the need and approve the price. That is exactly what a seller must be able to serve: a precise request, with a budget, to be answered quickly and reliably.

What it changes for an online store

1. Your product data becomes your shop window. Precise descriptions, complete specifications, up-to-date availability: that is what an agent reads to decide.
2. Your pricing must be machine-readable. An agent compares offers. If your only answer is a fixed price, you are compared on that single number.
3. Negotiation becomes a sales channel. An agent asking "can you do better?" expects an immediate answer, computed within your margin limits. Without an engine to answer it, the sale goes to a competitor that has one.
4. Trust relies on proof. Agents and buyers need guarantees: a price granted must be verifiable and honoured at checkout.

Where bepleez stands

bepleez was built for negotiation on the store, but its engine also answers AI agents: an assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT can already query a bepleez store, negotiate for its user and get a discount code usable at checkout, through MCP and A2A. The agreement is signed, so anyone can verify its terms. We explain how negotiation works in what is AI price negotiation.

Frequently asked questions

Will agentic commerce replace e-commerce sites? No. Buyers will keep visiting stores, especially to discover products. Agentic commerce adds a channel: purchases where the person knows what they want and delegates the search.

Do I need to be on Shopify to be compatible? No. The protocols are open and platform-independent. Shopify was among the first platforms announced for buying in ChatGPT.

Can an agent buy without my consent? Payment protocols such as AP2 and ACP are designed so that every purchase rests on the user's explicit, provable and verifiable authorisation.

How is it different from a chatbot? A chatbot answers a visitor's questions on one site. An agent acts for a person, across several sites, all the way to the purchase.

Sources

• Anthropic, announcement of the Model Context Protocol, 26 November 2024.
• Google, announcement of the Agent2Agent protocol (Google Cloud Next, 9 April 2025); transfer to the Linux Foundation, June 2025.
• Google Cloud, "Announcing Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)", September 2025.
• OpenAI, "Buy it in ChatGPT: Instant Checkout and the Agentic Commerce Protocol", and Stripe press release of 29 September 2025.