# The Agentic Commerce Stack — Ahnaf Prio, Best Buy

## Executive summary

The talk outlines the architectural shift required for 'Agentic Commerce,' moving beyond brittle browser automation (like DOM reading or screenshotting) toward standardized protocols. The core solution involves defining specific primitives—such as MCP, A2A, ACP, UCP, and AP2—that allow AI agents to interact directly with merchant APIs without triggering fraud alarms. Successful implementation requires rigorous testing using behavioral and protocol compliance 'evals.'

## Key takeaways

- Agentic Commerce Scope: Approximately 45% of all agent sessions on major platforms (e.g., ChatGPT, Google Gemini) are related to shopping, indicating a massive market opportunity ($7B to $65B by 2030).
- Failure of Early Agents: Early attempts using screenshots and reading the DOM were slow, clunky, and brittle. Furthermore, automated browser actions often trigger fraud alarms at the payment stage.
- The Need for Standardization: To scale, commerce must standardize its primitives. Instead of relying on search catalogs, merchants should provide structured product feeds to protocols like ACP and UCP. The process involves the agent calling a merchant checkout API directly (no browser needed).
- Payment Mandates with AP2: Autonomous payments require more than just tokens. AP2 (Agentic Payment Protocol) is an extension that mandates defining the authorizing party, a spend ceiling, and a revocation URL.
- Testing with Evals: Building agentic commerce requires intense testing (evals) focused on behavior, protocol compliance, and latency benchmarks. Failure to test can lead to agents being misused in production (e.g., asking programming questions).

## Technical details

- MCP (Model Context Protocol): The protocol defining how an AI agent identifies and utilizes specific tools or capabilities (e.g., product search, loyalty checks).
- A2A (Agent-to-Agent): A specification defining how different specialized agents—such as a customer agent and a merchant agent—can communicate with each other.
- ACP / UCP: Commerce primitives (OpenAI's ACP, Google's UCP) designed to standardize product data exchange. They mandate that merchants provide a structured 'product feed' rather than relying on search catalog calls.
- AP2 (Agentic Payment Protocol): An extension of UCP for autonomous transactions, requiring explicit definition of the authorizing party, maximum spend ceiling, and a revocation URL.

## Practical implications

- Adopt standardized protocols (MCP, UCP/ACP) to build merchant agents that interact via APIs rather than browser automation.
- Implement rigorous testing frameworks ('evals') covering behavioral compliance and latency benchmarks before production deployment.
- For autonomous payments, utilize AP2 standards to ensure clear authorization, spending limits, and revocation capabilities.

## Topics

Agentic Commerce, AI Protocols, E-commerce Architecture, LLM Integration, GitHub Repository, Agent Skills Template

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7cgLjZtmMU