Agentic commerce · Protocol

Agent Payments Protocol

Also known as: AP2

What is AP2?

The Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), announced by Google in September 2025, is an open protocol for agents to make payments using verifiable, user-signed mandates.

AP2 is designed to make agent-initiated purchases auditable: a mandate records what the user authorized, so merchants and payment networks can verify intent.

Related entities

Agentic commerceAgentic commerce is shopping in which an AI agent discovers, compares and purchases on a person's behalf within limits the person has authorized.
Model Context ProtocolThe Model Context Protocol (MCP), introduced by Anthropic in November 2024, is an open standard for connecting AI applications to external tools and data sources.

Field notes covering AP2

Agentic Checkout: Is Your Store Buyable by AI?Being recommended is no longer the finish line. AI agents need reliable product state, policy, authority, and checkout rails to complete the transaction.

Sources & identifiers

https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/announcing-agents-to-payments-ap2-protocol

Search disciplinesSite structureAI systemsLocal searchDistribution & growthAgentic commerceHover to trace relationships · click to open