ACP vs UCP: What Are They, and Which Store Platforms Support Them?

How do ACP and UCP compare?

In practice, the protocols overlap more than they compete. Both describe products, carts and checkout in a form agents can use. The difference is mostly who uses them: ACP is tied to OpenAI and Stripe's network, UCP to Google and the retailers and platforms that adopted it. What Google asks of merchants who want UCP checkout is covered in what Google's UCP setup requires of Merchant Center sellers.

Which store platforms support them?

Support changes quickly, so check your platform's own status page before planning work.

How to audit Shopify entity signals and ACP and UCP compliance

Shopify handles the protocols for you, so the audit is mostly about confirming they are switched on and that your data is good:

1. Check Agentic Storefronts. In Shopify admin, go to Sales channels, then Agentic, and confirm which AI channels are active and which products are eligible, as covered in how Shopify Agentic Storefronts works.
2. Check the UCP profile. Visit your domain followed by /.well-known/ucp. It should return a JSON profile listing capabilities. Shopify-generated stores also serve /agents.md and /llms.txt with agent instructions.
3. Run Shopify's readiness scanner, which tests the UCP endpoint, product structured data and policies, as covered in the Shopify readiness tool review.
4. Check product data. Titles, brand, GTINs, variants, prices, stock, shipping and returns must be complete in Shopify, since that is what the protocols carry.
5. Check entity signals. Your store name, brand name and legal name should match across the site, the About page, Organization structured data, Google Merchant Center and social profiles, so AI systems connect them to one business.
6. Test the outcome. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot about your products and check whether they appear with the right price.

What Shopify turns on by default is covered in whether Shopify's default settings improve AI visibility.

Does WooCommerce natively support ACP or UCP?

Not yet. WooCommerce's agentic commerce page lists its protocol status as: Model Context Protocol live, so AI assistants can read store products, orders and settings; WordPress's Abilities API live; and both UCP and ACP coming soon. ACP support will arrive through Stripe's Agentic Commerce Suite in the official Stripe for WooCommerce extension, which WooCommerce said would support Woo from day one; merchants can install the extension now and join Stripe's waitlist.

Meanwhile, WooCommerce stores can:

• Sync products to Google Merchant Center with the Google for WooCommerce extension, which makes them eligible for Google's AI shopping results.
• Apply to share a product feed with OpenAI, or rely on ChatGPT crawling product pages.
• Consider third-party UCP plugins with care. Several exist, but they are not WooCommerce's own, so check who maintains them, how they handle payments and whether Google accepts the result.

A WooCommerce feature request for native UCP support opened in January 2026, and WooCommerce's page says protocols will be enabled automatically as they arrive.

Where do MCP and AP2 fit?

Two related protocols often appear in the same conversations:

• MCP, the Model Context Protocol, connects AI assistants to tools and data. It is not a commerce standard, but commerce platforms use it as a transport: Shopify stores publish an MCP endpoint for UCP, and WooCommerce's MCP integration lets assistants read products, orders and settings.
• AP2, the Agent Payments Protocol, is Google's standard for payments an agent makes on a shopper's behalf, within limits the shopper sets, backed by tamper-proof mandates. UCP is designed to work with it for the payment step.

A store rarely implements either directly. They matter because they show where the ecosystem is heading: agents that read, compare and pay through standard interfaces.

Do you need either protocol to appear in AI answers?

No. Both matter for buying through an agent, not for being recommended. ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot recommend products from feeds and crawled pages. Checkout protocols decide whether the shopper can pay inside the assistant or is sent to your site. How ChatGPT's approach changed is covered in what ChatGPT Instant Checkout means for retailers, and Microsoft's routes in how to connect catalogues to Copilot shopping.

We have not implemented either protocol for a store. This page is based on Google's, Stripe's, OpenAI's, Shopify's, WooCommerce's and Microsoft's published pages, and platform announcements.

What might this look like in practice?

Consider an illustrative furniture retailer, Elskmere, running WooCommerce with Stripe. Its agency proposed building a custom UCP integration. The owner checked WooCommerce's status page, saw UCP and ACP marked coming soon, and chose a cheaper path: sync the catalogue to Google Merchant Center, fix missing dimensions and GTINs, apply to share a feed with OpenAI, and install the Stripe extension ready for the Agentic Commerce Suite. Elskmere's products began appearing in AI Mode shopping results with checkout on its own site, and the team planned to switch on agent checkout when WooCommerce released it.

What do people ask about ACP and UCP?

Is UCP only for Google?

No. It is an open standard, and Microsoft uses UCP-ready feeds for Copilot Checkout.

Does Shopify support ACP and UCP?

Yes. Shopify stores publish a UCP profile and connect to ChatGPT and Copilot through Agentic Storefronts, without extra setup.

Does WooCommerce support UCP?

Not natively yet. WooCommerce lists UCP and ACP as coming soon.

Do I need both?

Only if you want agent checkout on both Google's and OpenAI's or Stripe's networks. Most stores get them through their platform.