Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) — an open standard, developed by OpenAI and Stripe, for how an AI agent and a merchant exchange product, cart and payment information.
What it was built for
ACP launched on 29 September 2025 alongside Instant Checkout, which let US ChatGPT users buy from Etsy sellers inside the chat, with Shopify merchants announced to follow. A shared payment token let the agent start a payment without handling the buyer’s card details, scoped to one merchant and one amount. Stripe described the protocol as usable with other payment providers, not just its own.
What changed
In March 2026 OpenAI scaled back native checkout in ChatGPT. Buyers now generally finish on the merchant’s own site, or inside a merchant’s app in ChatGPT, and ACP’s center of gravity shifted toward discovery — the feed and data layer that gets a catalog into ChatGPT’s shopping results.
For most merchants the practical question is no longer “should we integrate ACP?” but “is our product data in ChatGPT, and is it right?” Shopify merchants are included through Shopify Catalog; other merchants can submit a product feed directly.
Sources: Stripe, 29 Sep 2025 · CNBC, 24 Mar 2026 · OpenAI Help Center, Shopping with ChatGPT search. Last checked 25 September 2026.
Related: agentic commerce, Universal Commerce Protocol, product feed.