Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)
A payment authorization protocol based on signed agent mandates.
What is Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)?
Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) is part of the commerce protocols vocabulary. In practice, it describes a payment authorization protocol based on signed agent mandates. The exact implementation varies by platform, but the useful meaning stays the same: it helps teams name a specific part of how products, content, AI answers, or commerce operations work.
Why it matters
Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) matters because agentic commerce needs shared rules for discovery, checkout, authorization, and tool access. Protocols reduce one-off integrations between agents and merchants.
How Ranketta uses this concept
Ranketta relates this concept back to ecommerce outcomes: which products AI recommends, which sources influence answers, and what teams can fix in their catalog or content.