PayPal has confirmed its integration with Google's newly launched Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard designed to connect AI systems, retailers, and payment providers. The announcement was made during the National Retail Federation's annual convention in New York, with PayPal set to appear as a payment option inside Google's AI-powered checkout experience.
PayPal CEO Alex Chriss described the move as the "next phase" of a partnership first announced in September 2025, shifting from concept to execution as AI agents take on larger roles in online shopping. "This is a milestone moment making agentic commerce a reality for consumers," Chriss stated on social media platform X.
Google executives, including Vice President Vidhya Srinivasan, framed UCP as a platform-agnostic protocol that reduces the need for one-off integrations between individual AI agents and merchants. "Instead of requiring unique connections for every individual agent, UCP enables all agents to interact easily," Srinivasan explained. UCP is Google's second open agentic commerce protocol, following last year's Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), and is designed to work with its other agentic networks like Agent2Agent and Model Context Protocol.
The protocol was developed with several major retail and e-commerce partners, including Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart. Shopify Vice President Vanessa Lee noted the company contributed its experience in building checkout systems at scale to ensure UCP could be a robust, global standard.
PayPal executives emphasized interoperability as a key advantage. Prakhar Mehrotra, SVP and Head of AI at PayPal, said protocols like UCP "turn agentic commerce into something merchants can actually adopt at scale," by maintaining trust and control. Michelle Gill, General Manager of Small Business and Financial Services at PayPal, added that a trusted payments layer is essential for making agentic commerce a consumer reality.
However, some analysts express caution. Richard Crone, CEO of Crone Consulting, warned that if checkout moves to AI interfaces like Gemini, merchants could lose a critical touchpoint with customers, even as they are promised increased sales and discoverability.
The UCP announcement coincides with other strategic moves by PayPal. Its venture arm recently participated in a €12 million Series A funding round for European payments firm Klearly. Furthermore, PayPal has signed one of New York City's largest office leases of the past year in Hudson Square, placing it physically closer to Google as both companies deepen their investment in AI-driven commerce.
