Earlier this week I was online, trying to buy my friend a gift card for her birthday. The site I used wouldn’t accept my credit card because it wasn’t issued in the U.S.
My only other option was Google Pay, but I hadn’t set up Google Pay before. The only reason I took the necessary next steps was because I didn’t want to have to look for another gift, starting the process all over again.
If this sounds like the sort of customer experience (CX) dilemma where AI could come to the rescue, you’ve already grasped the importance of Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), a new standard co-developed with Google, Shopify and others.
Although I didn’t get to attend this week’s NRF ‘Big Show’ in New York, I’m willing to bet this is the most notable innovation to come out of it.
What UCP will do
Among other possible uses, UCP could potentially put an end to the dreaded “proceed to checkout” stage of online shopping.
This is the point where you often have to figure out which credit card to use, double-check the shipping address, apply a discount code, key in your loyalty program number and then, maybe click the “Place Order” button.
Wouldn’t it be nice if AI could do all that for us? Of course it would, but customers may be initially wary of the shift.
Google will launch UCP in the U.S. as part of its AI Mode in search. That means if you’re asking Google to recommend new skis this winter, it will not only surface some options but allow you to buy without toggling out to the retailer’s site.
Instead, UCP will allow you to stay in the AI “conversation” and let an AI agent complete the transaction on your behalf.
The bar for UCP that’s already set
The success of UCP will ultimately depend on customers’ trust and willingness to let Google and its partners manage their data and handle these processes.
It will only take a few errors – using the wrong payment method, buying the wrong item, sending it to the wrong address – for shoppers to wrest control back from AI.
UCP also assumes that everyone wants to shop while logged into a profile, whether it’s their Google profile or one associated with a particular brand. If that were true, there wouldn’t be so many retailers continuing to offer guest checkout today.
As irritating as it can often be, the “proceed to checkout” stage can sometimes be a helpful pause between thinking about a purchase and committing to one.
Sometimes you want to weigh whether it’s worth those expedited shipping fees, whether to use some of your points balance or whether to simply save the item to a wishlist for later.
Sometimes you realize you don’t wish to proceed any further.
Vendors are no doubt excited about this next move into what they like to call “agentic commerce,” but for consumers, delegating the buying to AI might feel like they’re leaving some of their own autonomy behind.
The worst thing a retailer can hear when you walk out of a physical store is “I’ll think about it,” but in some respects, thinking about it is how shopping is supposed to work.