Product Introduction
- The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) is an open-source standard designed to enable secure, automated transactions between buyers, AI agents, and businesses. It provides a framework for programmatic commerce that integrates with existing payment processors and commerce infrastructure.
- Its core value lies in creating a universal interface for AI-driven transactions, allowing businesses to expand their reach while maintaining control over product presentation, pricing, and order fulfillment.
Main Features
- Open Source Flexibility: Released under Apache 2.0, ACP allows businesses to implement the specification freely and integrate with any AI agent or payment processor without vendor lock-in.
- Business-Centric Control: Companies retain full ownership of customer relationships and commerce workflows, including product visibility rules, checkout configurations, and payment gateway selections.
- Multi-Commerce Support: Handles physical goods, digital products, subscriptions, and asynchronous purchases through flexible API configurations compatible with REST and MCP standards.
Problems Solved
- Eliminates friction in AI-driven transactions by standardizing how agents discover products, initiate purchases, and securely transmit payment credentials.
- Serves three key groups: businesses seeking AI-enabled sales channels, AI developers embedding commerce capabilities, and payment providers processing agentic transactions.
- Enables use cases like ChatGPT's Instant Checkout, where users purchase directly through conversational interfaces without compromising payment security.
Unique Advantages
- Decentralized Governance: Jointly developed by OpenAI and Stripe, ACP combines AI integration expertise with payment industry standards rather than favoring a single provider.
- PCI-Compliant Tokenization: Uses secure payment tokens instead of raw credentials, enabling AI agents to facilitate transactions without exposing sensitive data.
- Backward Compatibility: Works with existing commerce stacks through customizable endpoints, allowing gradual adoption without infrastructure overhauls.