Google recently unveiled Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), a new open standard for agentic commerce that the search giant claims works across the entire shopping journey — from discovery and buying to post-purchase support. UCP establishes a common language for agents and systems to operate together across consumer surfaces, businesses, and payment providers to enable commerce. So instead of requiring unique connections for every individual agent, UCP enables all agents to interact easily. The protocol has backing from some of the biggest American retailers and payment players including Walmart, Target, Shopify and Etsy.Announced at the National Retail Federation conference in New York, Google pitched UCP as a foundation for “agentic commerce,” a fast-emerging concept in which AI agents help shoppers carry out multi-step tasks on their behalf. “AI agents will be a big part of how we shop in the not-so-distant future,” wrote Google CEO Sundar Pichai on X, formerly Twitter.
Amazon vs Perplexity over AI shopping agents
Notably, there was one e-commerce giant not included in Google’s announcement: Amazon. And incidentally, this AI-led shopping is similar to what Amazon last year sent a legal notice to Perplexity over. And the two companies have been fighting over. In November 2025, Amazon sued Perplexity over AI shopping agents.In a lawsuit filed in Northern California, Amazon sued Perplexity to stop its Comet AI agents from accessing Amazon’s e-commerce website in what it alleges to be a covert manner. The lawsuit followed a cease and desist letter in which Amazon alleged Perplexity is “disguising Comet as a Google Chrome browser” and refusing to identify Comet AI agents when operating in the Amazon Store, making purchases on behalf of users without authorization.In a blog post on sending Cease and Desist notice to Perplexity, Amazon wrote, “We think it’s fairly straightforward that third-party applications that offer to make purchases on behalf of customers from other businesses should operate openly and respect service provider decisions whether or not to participate. This helps ensure a positive customer experience and it is how others operate, including food delivery apps and the restaurants they take orders for, delivery service apps and the stores they shop from, and online travel agencies and the airlines they book tickets with for customers. Agentic third-party applications such as Perplexity’s Comet have the same obligations, and we’ve repeatedly requested that Perplexity remove Amazon from the Comet experience, particularly in light of the significantly degraded shopping and customer service experience it provides.”
Amazon sends Cease and Desist letter to PerplexityAI
“As a general matter, Amazon shares the industry’s excitement about AI innovations and sees significant potential for agentic AI to improve customer experiences in a range of areas. But to successfully deliver for customers, AI agents that offer to make purchases on behalf of customers must operate transparently when taking actions purportedly on a customer’s behalf. Such transparency is critical because it protects a service provider’s right to monitor AI agents and restrict conduct that degrades the customer shopping experience, erodes customer trust, and creates security risks for our customers’ private data. It also facilitates dialogue between service providers and AI agent providers, who should share a common interest in improving customer shopping experience. Without transparency, no such dialogue is possible, which is why Amazon invites discussions with AI providers about how they can improve the experiences of Amazon customers. Yet, Perplexity has refused to operate transparently and has instead taken affirmative steps to conceal its agentic activities in the Amazon Store. This refusal is particularly troubling given that Amazon has, on multiple occasions, asked Perplexity to stop undisclosed agentic activities, which are not authorized by Amazon and violate Amazon’s Conditions of Use,” said Amazon in its Cease and Desist letter.
Amazon on third-party AI shopping agents
Also what needs to be noted here is that Amazon’s legal notice to Perplexity is not being seen as a full indictment against third-party agentic commerce, but moreso an example of how Amazon wants to work with external agents on its own terms. Amazon has been experimenting with its own AI-powered shopping features, including its Rufus assistant and the “Buy for Me” initiative since sometime now. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy acknowledged on during the last earnings call that agentic commerce “has a chance to be really good for e-commerce” and said that he expects the company to partner with third-party agents over time. At the same time, Jessy said that agents “aren’t very good” at personalization and often display incorrect pricing and delivery estimates. Jassy also said that the company is not against external partnerships for Agentic Commerce. During the call, Jassy said, “We’re also having conversations with and expect over time to partner with third-party agents.” “And today, search engines are a very small part of our referral traffic, and third-party agents are a very small subset of that. But I do think that we will find ways to partner. We have to find a way, though, that makes the customer exp
