Agentic commerce for Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce stores

Agentic commerce is shopping where an AI assistant does some of the work for the shopper: it finds products, compares them, and in some apps places the order. For a store it has two halves. Discovery is whether the assistant can find your products and chooses to recommend them. Checkout is whether the shopper can buy without leaving the assistant, and who handles the order when they do.

This guide covers what's live today in each AI channel, what Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce turn on for you, the protocols behind it in plain terms, and what to check on your store.

What's live today, by AI channel

What each company says:

• ChatGPT. Shopify and Etsy catalogs are already connected, and other merchants can apply to share a product feed. Purchases happen on the merchant's own site (ChatGPT: merchants). OpenAI launched Instant Checkout inside ChatGPT in September 2025 (OpenAI), then moved purchases back to merchants' own checkouts in March 2026 (OpenAI).
• Google. Shopping in AI Mode runs on Google's Shopping Graph (Google). Checkout inside AI Mode and Gemini runs on the Universal Commerce Protocol. It's opt-in, open to select merchants, and needs a Merchant Center account in good standing, published return policies and a customer-support contact. Google tells merchants on a commerce platform to ask the platform (Merchant Center Help: UCP checkout).
• Microsoft. Copilot Checkout lets shoppers buy inside Copilot while the merchant stays the merchant of record. Shopify merchants were enrolled automatically after an opt-out window (Microsoft Advertising, Jan 8, 2026). Microsoft's current page lists Shopify and Stripe as the ways in, for English-language merchants selling to US buyers in US dollars, with a Microsoft Merchant Center account (Microsoft: agentic commerce).
• Meta. Muse is Meta's personal AI agent (Meta). Shopify lists Meta, including Muse, as one of its AI channels. We found no Meta program that merchants can join on their own.
• Perplexity. Instant Buy works with merchants compatible with Perplexity's agentic checkout, the retailer stays the merchant of record, and Perplexity says its answers are more likely to recommend merchants that supply detailed product data (Perplexity Help: Instant Buy).

What your platform turns on for you

Shopify

It's on by default. Shopify's agentic storefronts are active by default for eligible stores. Your products reach the AI channels through Shopify Catalog: ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Meta and Shop. Orders show up in your admin with the channel they came from (Shopify Help Center: agentic storefronts).

Where checkout happens.

• ChatGPT sends the shopper to your store's own checkout.
• Google, Copilot and Meta use a checkout Shopify runs inside the app. It's on by default, and you can switch it off per channel, which sends shoppers to your store instead.
• The in-app checkout doesn't support subscription-only products, bundles, customizable products, local delivery or pickup.
• Your client-side pixels and Google Analytics don't fire on it.

Your controls. They're in Sales channels > Agentic:

• A setting that lets Shopify manage everything is on by default.
• Turn it off to set each channel's catalog access and checkout yourself. Turning off catalog access can take up to 7 days.
• There's no AI-only way to hide a product. The Unlisted status hides it from AI channels, and also from search engines, your sitemap and store search.

Who's eligible. To be in Shopify Catalog, a store has to be on the Starter plan or higher and not password-protected. Each product needs a title, at least one image and a price above zero, and can't be in an excluded category such as alcohol, tobacco or weapons (Shopify Help Center: Catalog requirements). Every AI channel also needs your terms of service, privacy policy and return and refund policy in place. ChatGPT and Copilot need you to sell to US customers, and Google needs US, Canadian or Australian customers and a Merchant Center account.

Reporting. The same Agentic page shows sales, orders, online store sessions and conversion for each AI channel. It also has a search preview that shows how your products might rank and which listing signals count: description, images, reviews, variants and store policies (Shopify Help Center: managing agentic storefronts).

Store facts. In the knowledge base you publish facts about your store, such as your returns and shipping, that AI agents use to answer questions about anything other than products. It now lives on the Agentic page; the standalone Knowledge Base app is deprecated on January 15, 2027 (Shopify Help Center: knowledge base).

WooCommerce

• Google. Google for WooCommerce, an official extension, syncs your products to Merchant Center (WooCommerce).
• Checkout in AI apps. The WooCommerce AI extension has an agentic commerce setting, in private beta, and each shopping service has its own onboarding (WooCommerce).
• Stripe. Stripe's Agentic Commerce Suite lets a merchant share one product catalog that Stripe lists with AI agents, then handles checkout and payment. Stripe says it's bringing the suite to platforms including WooCommerce and BigCommerce (Stripe).
• Measuring it. WooCommerce itself doesn't report AI orders; it suggests checking AI referrals in your analytics (WooCommerce).

BigCommerce

• Browser agents. WebMCP, on by default for eligible stores since October 21, 2026, lets shoppers' browser agents find products and fill a cart on your store. Checkout stays on your storefront (Commerce).
• Feeds. Feedonomics' agentic catalog exports, an enterprise service for now, send catalogs to AI channels (Commerce). BigCommerce also announced the PayPal Store Sync app for AI discovery and checkout (Commerce).
• Stripe. Stripe's Agentic Commerce Suite is coming to BigCommerce too.

The protocols, in plain terms

You'll see these names in announcements. On Shopify they're handled for you; on other platforms they come through your platform, your feed tools or your payment provider.

• Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP). OpenAI and Stripe released it in September 2025 for buying inside ChatGPT (OpenAI). Since March 2026 it mainly carries product feeds (OpenAI).
• Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). Google and Shopify launched it in January 2026, with Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart. It's an open standard that gives AI agents and stores one shared language from discovery through checkout and after the sale, with the merchant staying the seller of record (Google, Shopify, UCP).
• Model Context Protocol (MCP). An open-source standard for connecting AI apps to outside systems (MCP).
• WebMCP. A proposed web standard that lets a web page offer tools to an AI agent in the browser. Chrome is testing it (Chrome for Developers). Shopify provides WebMCP tools for search, cart, checkout and navigation on every Liquid storefront (Shopify), and BigCommerce turns it on by default.
• Payments. Stripe and the card networks each have a system for payments an AI agent starts:
  • Stripe's Shared Payment Tokens, which let an agent pass a buyer's payment details safely (Stripe).
  • Visa Intelligent Commerce, whose Trusted Agent Protocol lets merchants verify approved agents (Visa).
  • Mastercard Agent Pay, whose tokens work in existing checkout forms. Mastercard says a merchant's main job is not to block verified agent traffic (Mastercard).

Listed isn't recommended

Getting into a catalog makes your products eligible to appear in an AI answer. Which products the answer recommends is decided separately. OpenAI says ChatGPT picks product results from product data, uses reviews from public websites, and weighs availability, price, quality and whether the seller is the maker (OpenAI Help: Shopping with ChatGPT Search). Shopify's own search preview grades your listings on description, images, reviews, variants and store policies. So the catalog connection is where the work starts. Our guide to getting your products recommended by ChatGPT covers the rest.

What to check on your store

1. See which channels you're in. On Shopify, open Sales channels > Agentic. Elsewhere, check your Merchant Center, feed tools and payment provider.
2. Decide on in-app checkout, channel by channel. It saves the shopper a step. But your pixels don't fire on it, and some product types aren't supported.
3. Fill in the product data agents read. Titles, images, prices, variants, identifiers such as GTINs, and descriptions that answer buyers' questions.
4. Publish your policies. Every Shopify AI channel needs terms of service, a privacy policy and a return and refund policy. Google's in-app checkout needs return policies with the cost, window and a link, plus a support contact.
5. Publish your store facts. On Shopify, use the knowledge base on the Agentic page, so agents answer questions about returns and shipping from your own words.
6. Don't turn away the agents you want. Check robots.txt and your firewall; our AI crawlers guide covers which to allow.
7. Measure both halves. For orders, use Shopify's Agentic reports or your analytics' AI referrals. For whether AI answers recommend you at all, ask your buyers' questions repeatedly, or use the AI Shelf Report.

Questions

Do I need to do anything to sell in ChatGPT on Shopify? If your store is eligible, Shopify's agentic storefronts are already on. Check the eligibility rules above, especially your policies and whether you sell to US customers.

Who's the merchant of record? You are. Microsoft and Perplexity say so for their checkouts, Google says so for checkout through the Universal Commerce Protocol, and ChatGPT sends shoppers to your own checkout.

Should I turn off in-app checkout? It's a trade-off: a shorter path to purchase, against losing your pixels and analytics on those orders and some product types not being supported. Shopify lets you choose per channel.