SEO & AI Tip: Agentic Buying Is Now Open to Everyone, not just ChatGPT.
The ability to complete purchases through AI agents just took a big step forward yesterday. OpenAI & Stripe announced yesterday the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) and that it is now live and open to everyone to build with.
That means Agentic checkout that OpenAI just announced for ChatGPT can be built into your own websites, applications, and agents.
Think AI-driven transactions that actually complete purchases without needing to click through pages or rely on traditional UX flows.
This changes what’s possible for e-commerce teams building AI into their products.
Here’s what just became possible:
1 - You can add a shopping agent to your own site trained on your inventory, pricing, and order APIs.
2 - The user can interact via text, voice, or image and the agent can handle the transaction end to end.
3 - You don’t need to rebuild your store, ACP works with your existing infrastructure and a payment processor that supports it (Stripe is already supported).
3 - Any agent, from an on-site assistant to a mobile app, can initiate checkout in a standardized way with you still owning the customer and fulfillment
Here is a potential example: Large E-commerce Site With a Visual Concierge
Let’s say you run a major e-commerce site in fashion, furniture, or auto parts. A shopper lands on your homepage and uploads a photo of the item they want, maybe a jacket from Instagram, a sofa leg they broke, or a specific wrench that fits their mower.
Your on-site AI concierge kicks in:
- Converts the image to a vector embeddings to match it against your inventory
- Verifies availability, size, and price
- Suggests alternatives if the exact match is not in stock
- Then calls your ACP checkout endpoint, passes a secure payment token, and places the order
No need to browse, filter, add to cart and add payment information. Just ask for it and buy it.
Why This Matters for SEO
Optimizing your site content, product inventory, imagery, and anything that can help make Agents more easily find the right product for those searching via agents will directly impact how Agents find and recommend your products.
Make sure its clear in your data, text and imagery who your ideal customers are for each product to help Agents better match them to the people they're acting on behalf of.
Why This Matters for Brands
Most brands think of AI assistants as a front-end tool for discovery or support. ACP flips that around.
We know that speed to purchase has a huge impact on e-commerce transactions. This may make it even easier and faster for people to find what they want.
With ACP:
- You remain merchant of record
- You control fulfillment, returns, and data
- You open up your site to new shopping patterns: mobile agents, voice shopping, post-purchase reordering, concierge style product finders
This protocol makes agentic commerce a real channel not a side project.