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Agentic checkout
Also known as: Agent checkout
The general pattern of completing a purchase inside an AI agent conversation, without the shopper leaving to a merchant's website. Includes ACP Instant Checkout, UCP Buy for Me, and equivalents.
Agentic checkout is the umbrella term for any pattern where the transaction completes inside the agent surface rather than routing the shopper to an external checkout page. It's a category-defining concept for agentic commerce — brands that enable agentic checkout convert AI-driven traffic at 35-55% higher rates than brands that don't (measured across our customer base and consistent with Shopify's public data).
Implementation paths depend on the agent surface: ACP-native (ChatGPT, Copilot), UCP-native (Gemini, Google Search's Buy for Me), Amazon-native (Rufus, closed-loop within Amazon), or custom (Claude commerce, still maturing).
The strategic implication is bigger than the tactical: agentic checkout means the agent surface is competing directly with the merchant's website for the conversion moment. Brands that build agentic-checkout capability early establish the shopper habit before agent surfaces normalize on their own checkout defaults.
See also
Instant Checkout
OpenAI's in-conversation checkout flow, powered by ACP + Stripe. Enables a shopper to complete a purchase without leaving the ChatGPT conversation.
ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol)
OpenAI + Stripe's open protocol for agent-initiated commerce. Powers ChatGPT Instant Checkout and Copilot-adjacent commerce. Enables in-conversation purchase completion without the shopper leaving the agent.
UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol)
Google + Shopify + retail-consortium open protocol for agent commerce, endorsed at NRF 2026 by 20+ retailers including Walmart, Target, Wayfair, Etsy, and (as of Q1 2026) Amazon.
Buy for Me
Amazon's outbound-agent feature — Rufus can complete purchases on external retailer sites (500+ partners as of Q1 2026). Amazon-mediated checkout using stored Amazon credentials.
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