OpenAI, partnered with Stripe, has rolled out the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP). ACP enables Instant Checkout, allowing users to buy products within the ChatGPT interface without visiting a seller’s website. This collapses the traditional multi-step customer journey into a conversational experience where purchasers may never visit sellers’ web sites.
This shift will dramatically change buying experiences and introduce disintermediation risk that all enterprises must now consider in strategic planning. On the positive side, it presents growth opportunities for early adopters. OpenAI and Stripe co-developed ACP and released it as open-source to encourage widespread adoption.
We recommend enterprises embrace this protocol now, otherwise they risk losing access to OpenAI’s rapidly growing 700 million-user base. Stripe is projected to process over $1.6 trillion of payments this year, representing about 29% of online sales. Other protocols may emerge, but the backing of these two powerhouses strongly suggests ACP will be around for a long time.
Agentic Commerce is here. For brands relying on digital sales, the rules of discovery and transaction have changed overnight. Instant Checkout enables seamless, API-driven purchases that bypass traditional navigational steps and pre-purchase personalization. This is not simply another sales channel: it shifts checkout and personalization from onsite experiences to agent-mediated experiences, driven by context and protocol signals from ChatGPT sessions.
We’ve been expecting this for a while at Tealium. Today’s launch with Etsy shifts it from expectation to reality. I tested it by ordering a print of an F/A-18 on Etsy, it worked seamlessly on desktop, though there were minor issues on mobile. These kinks will likely be resolved quickly.
Good Data Will Always Fuel Good AI
As conversational agents become the primary interface for digital commerce, the cleanliness, comprehensiveness, and consent status of your data are more critical than ever. Good data fuels good AI.
Discovery will shift from website-driven personalization to agent-driven recommendations, informed by the quality of the data layer exposed via MCP, A2A, or future protocols. Sales stemming from those recommendations will transact through ACP. Organizations that can prepare high-quality, real-time product, pricing, and availability data will gain the advantage and seize virtual shelf space in this Agentic Future.
Trust and the Mandate for Consent-Driven Data
Agentic commerce requires real-time, high-value data to flow between users, agents, and brands—making data governance and consent management essential. AI-driven personalization cannot thrive without access to high-quality, trusted, consented data. Brands that activate their first-party and zero-party data will feed agents with context for smarter selection, pricing, and optimization while minimizing risk.
A semantic AI layer is required to normalize and interpret raw customer data so any agent can act upon purchase intents, audience segments, and loyalty insights. Because ACP is open-source, it can be adopted across agents, platforms, and models. Managing these agent-driven interactions requires a CDP to connect profiles, purchases, and consent data, while the semantic layer ensures real-time orchestration across brand moments.
Looking Ahead
For digital leaders, here’s how to prepare now:
- Embrace Agent-Readiness: Build a secure, authenticated, consent-aware API layer for machine-to-machine commerce and AI data exchange.
- Protocol Integration: Ensure compatibility with ACP and other emerging standards by enabling core data services to ingest and output interoperable formats.
- Power Transactionality: Support secure, tokenized payments, identity signals, and event feedback so AI agents can transact directly with your business logic.
- Validate Consent: Reinforce governance—consent is no longer a checkbox but a prerequisite for participating in agentic commerce.
As of September 29-30, 2025, Instant Checkout is live for U.S. Etsy sellers inside ChatGPT; Shopify is coming soon. Brands wanting to participate must apply to be partners. ACP, however, is open-source and available now.
OpenAI’s Instant Checkout is the visible manifestation of a fundamental shift. The time to prepare is over—it’s time to build.
