Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft Join AI Shopping Standard as UCP Tech Council Doubles in Size

Industry Heavyweights Rally Behind Open Shopping Standard

Five of the world's largest technology and commerce companies have joined the governing body behind the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), marking a significant consolidation of industry support for the open standard designed to let AI agents shop on behalf of consumers. Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Stripe announced on Thursday that they are now part of the UCP Tech Council, the technical body that steers the protocol's development. They join founding members Google, Shopify, Etsy, Target, and Wayfair, doubling the council's membership to ten organisations.

What is the Universal Commerce Protocol?

UCP, which Google unveiled at the National Retail Federation conference in January 2026, defines how AI agents interact with businesses across the full shopping journey, from product discovery and cart building through to checkout and post-purchase support. The protocol is open-source and designed to eliminate the integration complexity that arises when every AI platform must build custom connections with every retailer. Without such a standard, the agentic commerce ecosystem risks fragmenting into incompatible silos.

A Council of Commerce Giants

The Tech Council reviews contribution proposals, sets UCP's technical direction, and manages the open-source codebase. Each new member brings substantial expertise in commerce and payments at global scale. Amazon arrives as the world's largest online retailer, while Microsoft contributes through its Copilot and Merchant Centre integration. Meta represents a platform where billions of consumers discover products daily, Salesforce provides enterprise commerce infrastructure expertise, and Stripe brings payments processing capability at planetary scale.

Competing Visions for Agentic Commerce

The expansion comes as the race to define how AI agents transact online intensifies. Microsoft Advertising recently introduced general availability of UCP feeds in its Merchant Centre, allowing businesses to surface products through Microsoft Copilot. Meanwhile, competing approaches from OpenAI and others are also vying to shape how autonomous agents handle commerce. The market stakes are enormous, with projections estimating agentic commerce could generate between $190 billion and $385 billion in US e-commerce spending by 2030, capturing 10 to 20 percent of total market share. With Thursday's announcement, the industry's largest platforms appear to be converging on UCP as the single standard for this emerging era.