Hajra Naz
Some retailers are blocking AI agents from making purchases on their platforms. That includes Amazon and reportedly Adidas too. Meanwhile, e-commerce platform Shopify has moved in the opposite direction entirely.
On Monday, Shopify made a significant announcement. Browser-based AI agents can now complete purchases directly on Shopify merchants’ sites. This extends their capabilities well beyond just searching for products. Previously, agents could only add items to carts.
Shopify previously supported WebMCP for its storefronts and carts. This let browser-based AI agents comb through a Shopify retailer’s inventory. Agents could search for products and add them to a cart. Now, Shopify has expanded WebMCP support to cover checkout too. That includes Shop Pay specifically.
According to the company, agents can now read the checkout screen directly. They can update it as needed. They can also submit the transaction with buyer authorization. This all happens without relying on screenshots or scraping web pages.
This update introduces three new tools. That includes get_checkout, update_checkout, and complete_checkout. Together, these tools let agents inspect a checkout screen. They can change details like the customer’s address or delivery option. Then they can place an order once the buyer authorizes the purchase.
This feature is rolling out to all eligible Shopify merchants now. Gil Greenberg shared this update in a post on X. He’s a staff product manager working on agentic commerce at Shopify.
Shopify already offers a hosted Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. This allows agents to work server-to-server directly. The proposed standard, WebMCP, works differently, though. It’s designed specifically for agents operating inside a buyer’s browser. Both approaches rely on Shopify’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). This protocol provides a common way to search for products. It also supports building carts and completing checkout.
Several top AI agents already have direct partnerships with Shopify for agentic commerce. That includes Muse and Instinct. Notably, the Instinct partnership was announced today.
“If your agent is operating in the buyer’s browser, use WebMCP tools provided on storefront and checkout to efficiently complete order placement, instead of navigating HTML built for humans,” Greenberg wrote on X. “These WebMCP tools provide structured and efficient APIs, purposely designed — via UCP — to ensure accurate commerce facts, required disclosures, and handoff requirements.”
