Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP)
An open standard that lets AI agents complete a purchase directly with a merchant's systems.
What is Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP)?
ACP is an open standard that lets an AI agent complete a purchase directly through a merchant's own systems, using structured data exchanges instead of clicking buttons on a webpage. For example, instead of an AI assistant trying to visually navigate a checkout page, it sends a structured request for product and pricing information and a structured order to the merchant's backend, and the merchant responds the same way. It's the plumbing behind "buy this from within your chat" experiences.
Why it matters
OpenAI and Stripe co-developed ACP and released the specification as an open standard under an Apache 2.0 license on September 29, 2025, alongside ChatGPT's Instant Checkout feature, which launched first with Etsy and expanded to Shopify-powered brands such as Glossier, Vuori, and SKIMS within weeks. ACP defines standardized API schemas for product feeds, checkout sessions, and delegated payment tokens, so a merchant integrates once and can support checkout requests from any compliant AI agent, not just ChatGPT. The specification is maintained on GitHub under the OpenAI/Stripe-led agentic-commerce-protocol organization, and Stripe additionally supplies "Shared Payment Tokens" that let an agent complete a payment without ever seeing the underlying card number.