Google, Walmart, and Visa are shaping the landscape of interactive commerce with the World Trade Organization's protocol.
In a strategic move that ends the era of "traditional search" and ushers in the era of "interactive commerce," Google CEO Sundar Pichai unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). This open standard represents a "technological bridge" that allows AI agents, whether from Google (Gemini) or competitors (ChatGPT and Cloud), to directly access major retailers' warehouses, check availability, and complete complex purchases through a single integration point.
This announcement, made at the Big Show in New York, is backed by a broad alliance of commerce and payments giants such as Walmart, Shopify, Visa, and Mastercard. The new protocol aims to create a common language that bridges user experience with business process management systems, enabling AI to act as a true "buyer agent" capable of negotiating offers, completing payments, and shipping without the user ever leaving the chat window.
The figures announced by Google reflect the scale of the digital explosion. The company processed 90 trillion tokens in December 2025 alone, an elevenfold increase from the previous year. Its Shopping Map now boasts over 50 billion products, with real-time updates of two billion products every hour. This puts Google in direct competition with Amazon and Microsoft in the race to dominate the interactive commerce market, which is projected to reach $5 trillion by 2030.
In addition to this infrastructure, Google introduced Business Agent, a tool that allows brands like Reebok and Lowe's to create virtual sales assistants that appear directly in search results, transforming the search engine from a mere "address directory" into a "direct sales platform."
Despite this technological leap, the biggest challenge remains consumer trust. Studies indicate that only 17% of shoppers feel comfortable entrusting AI to complete their entire purchase. However, the joining of giants the size of Walmart and Visa to Google's protocol indicates that the company has already succeeded in imposing the "new global standard" that will govern the future of e-commerce in the coming years.
