Agentic AI payments infrastructure is evolving rapidly to support more seamless, AI-driven experiences, and the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) is a prime example of this progress.
Co-developed by Stripe and OpenAI, ACP is an open standard that standardizes how AI agents—like ChatGPT—can interact with merchants to discover products, negotiate details, and complete purchases securely. It enables a conversational flow where buyers, their AI agents, and businesses communicate to finalize transactions without friction.
The most visible implementation right now is Instant Checkout in ChatGPT: Users in the US, including free, Plus, and Pro tiers can discover products organically through natural conversation in ChatGPT; asking for recommendations on clothing, beauty items, or gifts. When a product supports Instant Checkout, a “Buy” option appears inline.
Register for Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 19 (Feb 9 – May 2, 2026).
Register for Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and co-invest in great global startups.
Register for Tekedia AI Lab.
Users confirm order details; shipping, variants, etc. and pay directly within the chat using saved methods like cards, Stripe Link, Apple Pay, or Google Pay—no need to switch to a website or external checkout page. Stripe powers the payment processing, issuing a Shared Payment Token; a secure, limited-use mechanism to handle the transaction without exposing full payment credentials to the AI platform.
It started with US-based Etsy sellers and has expanded to over a million Shopify merchants, including brands like Glossier, Vuori, Spanx, and SKIMS. This keeps the entire experience contained within the conversation, reducing drop-off and making AI a true “personal shopper” agent.
Merchants benefit too: If they already use Stripe, integration can be as simple as a one-line code change or providing a product feed. Even non-Stripe users can participate via options like Stripe’s Shared Payment Token API or the protocol’s Delegated Payments spec.
The protocol is open-sourced and has seen adoption and support from others like Salesforce and mentions of PayPal compatibility in expansions. This shows payments infrastructure is not just keeping pace—it’s actively enabling the shift toward agentic commerce, where AI agents handle discovery-to-purchase autonomously and securely.
It’s still rolling out; single-item purchases initially, with multi-item carts and more regions and merchants on the way, but it’s a significant step forward in blending AI conversations with real-world transactions.
PayPal has aggressively positioned itself as a key player in agentic commerce—the emerging era where AI agents discover products, manage carts, negotiate, and complete purchases autonomously through conversational interfaces.
PayPal has taken a broader, merchant-centric approach. It acts as an infrastructure layer connecting its vast network of tens of millions of merchants (small businesses to major brands) to multiple AI platforms, reducing friction for both buyers and sellers.
PayPal introduced a suite including Store Sync for syncing product catalogs, inventory, and fulfillment to make them AI-discoverable and Agent Ready payments enabling secure, vaulted transactions via AI agents. This allows merchants to connect once and reach multiple AI surfaces without custom integrations per platform.
Partnerships with platforms like Wix, Cymbio, Shopware, and Logicbroker make setup plug-and-play for merchants. PayPal integrated the ACP to power instant checkout in ChatGPT. Users can now pay with PayPal directly in conversations.
PayPal handles processing via delegated payments APIs, supporting card payments and its wallet. This brings millions of products from its merchant network into ChatGPT, complementing Stripe’s original rollout. Perplexity launched “Instant Buy” ahead of Black Friday 2025 for agent-driven purchases.
Google Cloud collaborated on agentic solutions using Google’s Conversational Commerce Agent + PayPal payments, leveraging protocols like Agent2Agent (A2A), for secure, verifiable transactions. Mentions of Microsoft Copilot integrations for product discovery and sales.
PayPal released an Agent Toolkit including quickstarts and APIs for payments, invoices, subscriptions, disputes, etc. and supports MCP servers to let developers embed PayPal into AI workflows easily—even for non-coders. PayPal emphasizes trust; 25+ years of fraud prevention, buyer protection, identity verification and acts as a neutral layer.
It supports multiple protocols to future-proof merchants. Acquisitions like Cymbio enhance catalog distribution to AI agents. This positions PayPal not just as a payment processor but as the “trusted commerce ecosystem” enabler for AI-driven shopping—helping merchants stay in control of branding/customer relationships while turning conversations into sales across platforms.
As of early 2026, it’s expanding rapidly: more regions, multi-item support, and deeper integrations expected. Merchants using PayPal can often enable this with minimal effort, making it accessible beyond tech-heavy setups like Stripe’s.
Overall, PayPal’s strategy keeps pace with, in many ways complements the Stripe and OpenAI ACP push, focusing on scale, merchant reach, and cross-platform compatibility to drive the shift to agentic commerce.