Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) readiness
Let AI shopping agents browse, compare and buy from your shop
Quick answer: The Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is an open standard announced by Google in January 2026 and co-developed with Shopify. It lets AI agents discover a merchant's products, understand what the merchant supports and complete a purchase without the buyer leaving the conversation. Merchants publish a profile, conventionally at /.well-known/ucp, that advertises what they support.
Why it matters
AI assistants and shopping agents are starting to compare products and buy on a customer’s behalf. UCP gives them one consistent way to read a catalogue and check out, instead of scraping each website differently. If your shop is not readable by agents, they are likely to recommend a competitor that is.
Shopify stores can publish a UCP profile automatically, and we have seen live Shopify stores doing so. Other platforms need it set up. Either way, the profile is only as useful as the product, price and policy data behind it.
What we do
- Profile check: we fetch your
/.well-known/ucpprofile, confirm it is valid and that what it advertises matches your shop. - Product data quality: price, currency, availability, images, descriptions and identifiers on every product, in structured form agents can read.
- Policies in plain text: returns, shipping and delivery times written so an agent can quote them accurately.
- Set-up where it is needed: for platforms that do not publish a profile for you, we scope and build one where the specification fits your business.
- Before and after testing: we ask AI assistants real customer questions about your products and show you how they describe you before and after.
How it works
- Run our free agent-readiness scan on your shop.
- We review the results with you and agree what is worth fixing first.
- We fix the data and policies, then add UCP where it gives a real benefit.
- We re-test and report the difference.
UCP is new and still developing, so we check the current specification before we build anything, and we will tell you plainly if you do not need it yet.
Sources: Google: agentic commerce tools and the Universal Commerce Protocol. These standards are still evolving, so we check the current specification before we build.
Pricing
Pricing: From £1,500. Every project is scoped and quoted individually after a free call, so the final price depends on your systems and what you need.
Get a quote →Frequently asked questions
What is the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)?
UCP is an open standard announced by Google in January 2026 and co-developed with Shopify. It lets AI agents discover a merchant's products, understand what the merchant supports and complete a purchase inside a conversation.
Do I need to do anything for UCP if I use Shopify?
Shopify stores can publish a UCP profile automatically, so there is often little protocol work to do. The bigger job is usually the quality of your product data and the clarity of your policies, which is what agents actually read.
Is UCP the same as AP2?
No. UCP covers commerce: reading a catalogue, managing a cart and checking out. AP2 covers payments: how an agent is authorised to pay on a customer's behalf. They are designed to work together.
Can you guarantee AI agents will recommend my shop?
No, and nobody honestly can yet. We can measure how AI assistants describe your shop before and after our work, and show you the difference.
How much does it cost?
From £1,500. Every project is scoped and quoted individually after a free call, so the final price depends on your systems and what you need. Get a quote through our contact page.
Talk to us
Get a quote → Or run the free agent-readiness scan
Or email contact@heimdell-tech-ai.co.uk
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