Managing your Shopify Catalogue in an agentic era: What Google’s UCP means for your business

Exec summary

On January 11^th 2026, Google and Shopify announced Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). UCP is a co-developed, open standard protocol, developed by the two companies with the aim of standardising agentic commerce.

UCP will open the doors for eCommerce brands to have better control over how their products are surfaced within products such as Google’s AI Mode and Gemini, but more powerfully, enable customers to checkout without leaving the platform.

For brands using Shopify, their collaboration with Google on co-developing the protocol is hopefully a signal that you’re using the right platform. For non-Shopify platform users, they’ll be offering ‘Agentic Plans’, which will make the product accessible to all businesses – which is something I imagine was a non-negotiable for Google, and for Shopify, plays the long game of opening up these merchants to their teams and platform.

Why UCP doesn’t feel like another 'Buy on Google'

Call me cynical, but whenever a big technology company (particularly Google) announces a new product I am sceptical about what it means for businesses.

But while UCP is undoubtedly part of Google’s broader strategy to take the lead in the AI race (which they made a huge step forward on this week when announcing Gemini will power Apple’s foundational models), this does feel different to previous attempts Google has made to force checkout directly within their products.

Let’s not forget Google Checkout which alongside Google Wallet was launched with the intention of allowing customers to buy on Google, without leaving their platform, through their Google account.

That ship sailed and Google Checkout was retired in way back in 2013. But Google then launched “Buy on Google”, which was available for mobile ads and allowed customers again to checkout without ever landing on a merchants store.

Buy on Google was then deprecated in September 2023 and Google Shopping remained centre stage.

While scepticism should remain, UCP being announced as an open-source protocol feels like a broader play that can benefit eCommerce businesses. We’re having to accept that the future of Google Search looks something like AI Mode.

I think everyone would agree improvement is still needed, and user adoption is perhaps not as high as they expected, but if this is where they’re headed, UCP at least standardises the requirements for businesses, and gives us a clearer indication of what information should be provided.

Agents care about facts, not just signals

While a search engine cares about a broad range of signals to determine who best to display, agents will care about facts. This represents a shift in mentality that eCommerce managers, marketers, and product teams need to get on board with.

UCP will formalise how agents discover, negotiate, and complete your checkout process – it will need capabilities and attributes to be provided, not just product copy.

Those in charge of managing product information at source (whether through a PIM or Shopify), will either need a structured set of processes to work from, or our jobs of eCommerce and performance marketers will need to change somewhat – to align closer than ever before and ensure that product information is structured in a machine-readable format.

Think beyond keywords, think use cases, think about the facts that are relevant to your product. Think about the size, the age range, and other key attributes that a machine will need to understand when structuring your product data.

But building websites that are machine-readable isn’t ‘new’…

Is what we’re saying ‘new’? Fundamentally, the answer is no. The best website builders, eCommerce experts, and SEOs have been banging the drum about the need for machine-readable, structured information, for as long as I can remember.

“Does this really need to be done using JavaScript?”

“Have we added structured data to our product pages?”

“We really need to tidy our product feed up”

These are all statements we’ve heard over the years.

With the announcement of UCP, those principles are more important than ever. Think of your website as a feed. Start building structured data into your templates as standard. Make sure those product attributes actually make it onto the product page.

Facts right at source. Flow everywhere

For each SKU, eCommerce brands need to start capturing (and most importantly inputting) relevant facts that map to Google Merchant Centre attributes, serialise into structured data through schema.org, and detail the brand's relevant capabilities to an agent (think available discounts, loyalty, subscription models and more) at source.

If you’re using a Product Information Management System (PIM) inputting this data at source is the right thing to do.

For Shopify merchants, think about how this information is mapped into Shopify. In the back-end of Shopify, you can map attributes to metafields, those metafields can be passed to Google Merchant Centre and can be used to create relevant schema.org. Finally, map those attributes in a way that machines can parse on-site.

Attributes you might not track, but agents care about

While some attributes have long been a requirement for GMC, the announcement of Universal Commerce Protocol opens up a variety of opportunities for eCommerce brands to provide further context to agents.

Some examples to consider that will help an agent understand your product could include:

• Brand / GTIN / MPN / SKU
• Packs, bundles and variants – is the product part of a multipack, is the product part of a bundle, does the product have variants such as size, colour etc.
• Audience, age and safety – is the product suitable for a specific age group, are there allergens or warnings to be aware of 
• Product specifications – think weights, sizes, materials etc., all of this factual information is relevant 
• Policies and terms – map important policies including warranty, returns and shipping attributes
• Offer applicability – providing agents with relevant discount, loyalty, subscription and things such as sale or pre-order terms will help agents negotiate the checkout

Storytelling still matters

I am going to slightly contradict some of what I’ve written today with this statement. But the power of a brand will still be just as important, if not more so.

Where AI Mode, ChatGPT, or any other LLM is looking to build the user's trust, showcasing trustworthy businesses will be one of the things that determines the long-term adoption of these models for eCommerce. One bad experience will be difficult for a user to forget.

So providing a brand that excites and engages your audience will remain true. Be recognisable in your marketing and advertising. And provide genuine value to your customers through owned channels.

eCommerce businesses will still need to generate demand – but how that demand is captured is likely to change over time. In an agentic world demand capture will become more transactional than ever.

Practical steps to get your Shopify catalogue UCP ready

While nobody can predict the future, the announcement of UCP is probably the clearest indication of where we’re going so far.

If you’re a Shopify business wondering what this means, some practical steps to start considering include:

• Speak with your developers and product information owners – understand the potential resource required to make changes and understand whether you have the ability to be one of the leaders within your industry
• Source data audit – think about the facts you wish an agent knew about your product and start to understand what information is available today (attributes, variants, loyalty etc.)
• Use the Pareto principle for improvements – if 20% of your SKUs (or less) deliver 80% of your revenue (or more) complete a one-off sprint to enrich these. Review what’s being pushed into feeds, what schema needs to be in place that isn’t, fix problems with identifiers and any other issues your audit finds
• Specifications & guardrails – review processes and ensure that net new products have requirements baked in at source. Plan regular reviews of changes to GMC (for example quarterly) and new schema.org opportunities to ensure you’re making the most of new opportunities in what will be a changing landscape, while planning ongoing management of your feeds 

Wrap up

While we’re still some way from agentic commerce becoming the norm, we now at least have a standardised approach that Google, Shopify, and other large technology companies are moving towards.

It is sensible to start thinking about what this means for your product data, website, and product feeds and how you can set your store up in a way that engages your customers today, while planning for an agentic future tomorrow (if that day does arrive).