In January, I wrote in regards to the start of agentic commerce by way of each Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) and Common Commerce Protocol (UCP), and the way this might influence us all as customers, enterprise house owners, and SEOs. As we nonetheless sit on waitlists for each, this doesn’t imply that we will’t put together for it.
UCP fixes a real-life drawback for a lot of, minimizing the fragmented commerce journey. As an alternative of constructing separate integrations for each agent platform as we’ve got been largely doing prior to now, now you can [theoretically] combine as soon as and can combine seamlessly with different instruments and platforms.
However word right here that, versus ACP which focuses extra so on the checkout → success → fee journey, UCP goes past this with six capabilities masking the whole commerce lifecycle.
This, after all, will influence an website positioning’s ambit. As we shift from optimizing for clicks to optimizing for choice, we additionally want to make sure that it’s you/your shopper that’s chosen by way of knowledge integrity, product indicators, and AI-readable commerce capabilities. Structured knowledge has at all times served an essential position for the web as an entire and can proceed to be the driving pressure on how one can serve brokers, crawlers, and people in the easiest way attainable.
I allude to a attainable new acronym “ACO” – Agentic Commerce Optimization – and the next might be thought-about the closest we will get to pointers on how we undertake it.
UCP Isn’t Coming, It’s Right here
UCP was solely introduced in January, however there’s already affirmation that its capabilities are rolling out. On Feb. 11, 2026, Vidhya Srinivasan (VP/GM of Promoting & Commerce at Google) introduced that Wayfair and Etsy now use UCP so to buy straight inside AI Mode, and was noticed the following day by Brodie Clark.
UCP’s Six Layered Capabilities
On the day UCP was launched, Google defined its methodology.
From this, I outlined six core capabilities:
- Product Discovery – how brokers discover and floor your stock throughout analysis.
- Cart Administration – multi-item baskets, dynamic pricing, advanced basket guidelines.
- Id Linking – OAuth 2.0 authorization for personalised experiences and loyalty.
- Checkout – session creation, tax calculation, fee dealing with.
- Order Administration – webhook-based lifecycle and logistical updates.
- Vertical Capabilities – extensible modules for specialised use instances like journey reserving home windows or subscription schedules.
UCP’s schema authoring information reveals how capabilities are outlined by way of versioned JSON schemas, which act as the inspiration of the protocol. On the subject of contemplating this as an website positioning, properties equivalent to provides, aggregateRating, and shippingDetails aren’t only for surfacing wealthy snippets, and so forth., for product discovery, they’re now what brokers question throughout the whole course of.
Schema Is, And Will Proceed To Be, Important
UCP’s technical specification makes use of its personal JSON schema-based vocabulary. While it doesn’t construct on schema.org straight, it stays crucial within the broader ecosystem. As Pascal Fleury Fleury mentioned at Google Search Central Reside in December, “schema is the glue that binds all these ontologies collectively”. UCP handles the transaction; schema.org helps brokers determine who to transact with.
Make sure you’re on high of and populate product schema as a lot as you’ll be able to. It might seem to be website positioning 101. Regardless, audit all of this now to make sure you’re not lacking something when UCP actually rolls out.
This contains checks on:
- Product schema (with full protection): All core fields: identify, description, SKU, GTIN, model, associated pictures, and provides.
- Provides should embrace: Worth, priceCurrency, availability, URL, vendor. Add aggregateRating and evaluate to make sure you have constructive third-party perspective.
- Guarantee all product variants output appropriately.
- Embody shippingDetails with supply estimates.
- Group and Model: Assists with “Service provider of Report” verification. If you’re not an Group, then fallback to Individual.
- Designated FAQPage: Guarantee you’ve an FAQpage as these will be included alongside product-level FAQs and used as a part of its decision-making.
Put together Your Service provider Middle Feed
UCP will make the most of your present Service provider Middle feed as the invention layer. Which means that past the conventional on-site schema you present, Service provider Middle itself requires extra particulars that you may populate inside its platform.
- Return insurance policies (required to be a Service provider of Report): Full all return prices, return home windows, and coverage hyperlinks. These will probably be used not simply inside the checkout and transactional areas, however once more a consideration for choice in any respect. Superior accounts want insurance policies at every sub-account degree.
- Buyer help data: Not solely would preliminary data be supplied to the client, however there could also be methods wherein entry-level buyer help queries will be fully managed, thus growing buyer satisfaction whereas minimizing buyer help agent capability.
- Agentic checkout eligibility: Add the native_commerce attribute to your feed, as merchandise are solely eligible right here if that is arrange.
- Product identifiers: Every product will need to have an ID, and correlate to the product ID when utilizing the checkout API.
- Product shopper warnings: Any product warning ought to assert the consumer_notice attribute.
Google recommends that this be executed by way of a supplemental knowledge supply in Service provider Middle reasonably than modifying your main feed, which might forestall incorrect formatting or different invalidation.
Lastly, double-check if the merchandise you’re promoting aren’t included inside its product restrictions checklist, as there are a number of that, for those who do supply these issues, it is best to think about easy methods to handle alongside the skills of UCP.
Optimizing Conversational Commerce Attributes
Throughout the UCP weblog put up announcement, Srinivasan launched a means for extra readability with conversational commerce attributes:
“…we’re asserting dozens of recent knowledge attributes in Service provider Middle designed for straightforward discovery within the conversational commerce period, on surfaces like AI Mode, Gemini and Enterprise Agent. These new attributes complement retailers’ present knowledge feeds and transcend conventional key phrases to incorporate issues like solutions to widespread product questions, appropriate equipment or substitutes.”
These present additional readability (and due to this fact reduce hallucinations) in the course of the discovery course of to be able to be chosen or dominated out.
Not solely would this incorporate product and brand-related FAQs, however take this a step additional to additionally think about:
- Compatibility: Potential up-sell alternatives.
- Substitution: A chance for coping with out-of-stock gadgets.
- Associated merchandise: Nice for cross-sell alternatives.
Moreover, this can be utilized to change into much more particular, shifting past primary attributes to agent-parseable particulars. Now, if a product is “purple” on a primary degree, “darkish purple” and even one thing unobvious, equivalent to “Wolf” (actual instance under), could also be extra applicable for finer element whereas nonetheless falling below “purple.” The identical will be thought-about for sizes, supplies (or a combination of supplies), and so forth.
Multi-Modal Fan-Out Choice
When executed nicely, optimizing for conversational commerce attributes will improve the potential for choice inside fan-out question outcomes. When contemplating a few of these attributes, it’s price instruments, equivalent to WordLift’s Visible Fan-Out simulator, which illustrates how a single picture decomposes into a number of search intents, revealing which attributes brokers could prioritize when performing question fan-out. However how would this look?
For example, I used one product picture and browsed downward three horizons. Utilizing On’s Cloudsurfer Max for example (used with permission):
Utilizing only one product picture, that is what’s introduced on the floor:
It instantly seen that the product was On, and particularly from the Cloudsurfer vary. Nice begin! Now let’s see what it sees over the horizon:
Right here, you’ll be able to draw inspiration or route on how greatest to position your self for potential and certain fan-out queries. With this instance, I discovered it attention-grabbing that Horizon 2 mentions efficiency operating gear as a big class, then when performing fan-out on that confirmed the associated merchandise round gear on the whole. This reveals how huge LLMs think about choice and how one can current attributes to draw choice.
UCP’s Roadmap Is Increasing Into Multi-Verticals
UCP is already planning to transcend one single buy however expands past retail into journey, companies, and different verticals. Its roadmap particulars a number of priorities over the approaching yr, together with:
- Multi‑merchandise carts and sophisticated baskets: Shifting past single‑merchandise checkout to native multi‑merchandise carts, bundling, promotions, tax/transport logic, and extra life like success dealing with.
- Loyalty and account linking: Standardized loyalty program administration and account linking so brokers can apply factors, member pricing, and advantages throughout retailers.
- Publish‑buy help: Assist for order monitoring, returns, and buyer‑service handoff so brokers can handle buyer help post-sale.
- Personalization indicators: Richer indicators for cross‑promote/upsell, wishlists, historical past, and context‑primarily based suggestions.
- New verticals: Growth past retail into journey, companies, digital items, and meals/restaurant use instances through extensions to the protocol.
Every of the factors above is price additional studying and consideration if that is one thing your model could supply. Moreover, its plans to develop past retail into journey, companies, digital items, and hospitality imply that, for those who’re working inside any of those verticals, it’s worthwhile to be much more ready to make sure eligibility.
Social Proof And Third-Celebration Perspective
No matter how nicely you might optimize on-site to arrange for UCP, all this knowledge integrity nonetheless must be validated by trusted third-party sources.
Third-party platforms, equivalent to Trustpilot and G2, look like ceaselessly cited and trusted amongst many of the LLMs, so I’d nonetheless advise that you just proceed to gather these constructive model and product critiques to be able to fulfill consensus, leading to extra alternatives to be chosen throughout product discovery.
TL;DR – Put together Now
If you happen to personal or handle any type of ecommerce website, now could be the time to make sure you’re making ready for UCP’s rollout as quickly as attainable. It’s solely a matter of time, and with AI Mode spreading into default experiences, getting forward of the rollout is crucial.
- Be part of the UCP waitlist.
- Put together Service provider Middle: return insurance policies, native_commerce attribute.
- Guarantee your builders analysis and perceive the UCP documentation.
- Populate conversational attributes: question-answers, compatibility, substitutes.
- Audit and enhance any schema the place relevant.
That is shifting sooner than most earlier commerce shifts, and types that look forward to full rollout indicators will already be behind. This isn’t a short-term LLM gimmick however is a part of the biggest change within the ecommerce area.
Extra Sources:
Featured Picture: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock
