Let AI Do the Shopping, Says Google

Artificial intelligence agents can now shop so consumers don’t have to – but the non-human shoppers will need a signed permission slip first. Google on Wednesday announced the launch of an “agent payments protocol,” which creates a framework for AI-driven purchases.

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Built on Google’s existing Agent2Agent data-sharing framework and Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol, AP2 is pitched as an open, payment-agnostic system that allows AI agents to execute transactions on behalf of users or organizations. Instead of simply handing agents a corporate card, enterprises define rules through cryptographically signed “mandates,” which are digitally signed, cryptographically secure contracts that record what a user intends, what an agent is allowed to do and under what conditions.

Google says the design supplies merchants, payment processors and financial institutions with verifiable proof linking user intent and agent actions (see: Autonomous Payment or Anarchy? AI Gets Purchasing Power).

Google envisions two broad purchase scenarios. In “human-present” cases – such as telling AI to find a bottle of red wine – users trigger an “intent mandate,” which captures what they want. Once the agent picks items, users approves the shopping cart through a “cart mandate,” which fixes the exact items and price.

In “human-not-present” tasks such as buying tickets at midnight, only if under $100 each, the user sets in advance more detailed conditions in the intent mandate. After it meets those conditions, the agent generate a “cart mandate” by itself.

Google says that this chain from intent to cart to payment “creates a non-repudiable audit trail that answers the critical questions of authorization and authenticity, providing a clear foundation for accountability.”

More than 60 organizations back the AP2 protocol. Payment giants including Mastercard, American Express, PayPal and Worldpay joined technology vendors such as Salesforce, Adobe, Intuit, Red Hat and Cloudflare.

The protocol also extends to digital assets. Through an add-on called x402, AP2 supports cryptocurrency payments. Coinbase, MetaMask and the Ethereum Foundation are among early adopters. Erik Reppel, Coinbase’s head of engineering, described the initiative as “a natural playground for agents to start transacting with each other and testing out crypto rails.”

Liability remains a primary concern. If an agent misinterprets instructions and authorizes an unintended purchase, who is accountable? Compliance may also prove uneven across jurisdictions, as some regulators treat digital signatures differently than others.

Integration with existing enterprise systems is another hurdle. Fraud detection, identity verification and governance tools would need to adapt to agent-driven transactions. PayPal in its announcement said that the aim is to keep such payments “secure, auditable and accountable across the payments ecosystem.”

Google published AP2’s technical specifications on GitHub and invited contributions from standards bodies, payment providers and developers.