Latest research
Agentic commerce, examined
Source-led reporting on the protocols, payment controls and merchant decisions shaping agentic commerce. Each analysis separates what shipped, what a provider claims and what remains unmeasured. For the raw record, use the changelog; for dated figures, open the statistics desk.
Featured analysis
One Merchant in Four Is Closed to Identified Robots
24% of French and US merchant homepages answer HTTP 403 to a robot that identifies itself. Counting timeouts and errors, a quarter to a third of the 500 most visited stores are closed to it.
Read the analysisAlso new
UCP Adoption Is a Platform Effect: 500 Merchants Measured64 of 500 merchants publish a valid UCP profile and 58 of them sit on Shopify. What the readiness barometer shows about who really adopts UCP, and what a merchant should do with it.7 Production Gates for Commerce AgentsA practical test for commerce agents: trusted data, permissions, approvals, payment handoff, evals, latency and recourse.Analysis · 19
Research library
Dated analysis, grouped by the decision it helps you make.
Payments and controls
06x402 vs MPP: An Operational Guidex402 and MPP both start with HTTP 402, but their payment methods, sessions and operational controls differ.Visa Europe, TAP and Passkeys: What Is ProvenVisa says agents completed purchases at European merchants using TAP and Payment Passkeys. What is confirmed, provider-claimed and unmeasured.AWS AgentCore Payments GA: What ShippedAWS made AgentCore Payments generally available on 18 August 2026. What shipped, how its controls work and what the announcement does not prove.Agentic Payment Controls: Consent to DisputeA practical control model for consent, limits, revocation, retries, refunds, disputes and observable transaction evidence.x402: From Demo to Internet InfrastructureCoinbase launched x402 on 6 May 2025. In June 2026 AWS put it at the edge. What is measured, what is claimed, and where x402 sits next to ACP, UCP and AP2.Card Networks vs Open ProtocolsHow Visa Intelligent Commerce and Mastercard Agent Pay are claiming the acceptance and trust layer on top of ACP, UCP, AP2 and x402. Dated and sourced.
Protocols and governance
04UCP April to August 2026: Release DiffA source-led diff of the UCP schemas, payments, identity, grocery and migration changes between the April and August releases.UCP Six Months In: What ShippedGoogle launched UCP on 11 January 2026. Six months later: three spec releases, Mastercard aboard, Shopify self-serve. What is real and what is still roadmap.ACP Outlived Instant CheckoutOn 24 March 2026, OpenAI announced product discovery and merchant checkout. What the change means for ACP and merchants.AP2 Has Left GoogleGoogle donated AP2 to FIDO on 28 April 2026. What changes under its Payments working group, chaired by Mastercard and Visa, and how AP2 v0.2 works.
Merchant operations
03Verify an AI agent: identity, intent and behaviorA method for separating cryptographic identity, declared intent, authorization and observed behavior when evaluating an AI agent.How AI agents find and verify your productsFrom discovery to checkout, understand agent files, catalogues, MCP tools, ads and product truth.llms.txt for Agentic Commerce: Does It Work?llms.txt hands AI assistants a curated map of your best pages. What it is, who actually reads it today, and how to ship one. Honest, with primary sources.
Market signals
03Anthropic Commerce Agents: What ShippedAnthropic released Claude shopping and merchant agent blueprints. What the code includes, what merchants retain and where Visa and Mastercard fit.Agentic Commerce Goes Live in EuropeEurope ran its first production agentic payments in June 2026: Worldline and ING, then Nordea and Getnet, plus PayPal’s UK in-app checkout. Dated and sourced.Agentic Commerce News, June 2026June 2026 in agentic commerce: Visa’s OpenAI deal, Mastercard Agent Pay for Machines, Shopify’s open agentic layer and x402 on AWS. Dated and sourced.