What Is ACP?
The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) is an open standard, maintained by OpenAI and Stripe and licensed under Apache 2.0, that defines how merchants connect their products and checkout to AI agents, primarily ChatGPT. It was published on September 29, 2025 alongside ChatGPT Instant Checkout. The specification is labelled beta and its latest stable version is dated 2026-04-17.
What ACP Covers
ACP has three parts. Product feeds let merchants send a structured catalog to ChatGPT by API or file upload. Agentic checkout defines endpoints a merchant can implement so an agent can place an order. Delegated payment lets a payment service provider, such as Stripe with its Shared Payment Tokens, handle the card so the agent never sees raw details. The April 2026 version added cart, feed, orders, authentication, and Model Context Protocol support.
ACP After Instant Checkout
OpenAI retired native Instant Checkout in March 2026 after low merchant uptake and weak conversion; Walmart reported in-chat purchases converting at about one third of its own site. On March 24 OpenAI said merchants would keep their own checkout and ACP would focus on product discovery. Target, Sephora, Nordstrom, Lowe's, Best Buy, The Home Depot, and Wayfair were named as ACP discovery integrations, and Shopify stores reach ChatGPT through Shopify Catalog.
Why ACP Matters for Brands
For ChatGPT shopping answers, the ACP feed is the most direct way to tell ChatGPT what you sell, at what price, and whether it is in stock. A complete, frequently refreshed feed makes your products eligible for product carousels and comparisons. Without one, ChatGPT relies on what it can crawl and what third parties say, which often means a reseller's listing is shown instead of yours.
Commonly Confused With
ACP is not the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), the Google and Shopify standard used by Google AI Mode and Gemini. It is also distinct from AP2, which handles payment authorisation rather than catalogs or checkout. Many large retailers support both ACP and UCP.
