What is ACP? | Therefore

The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) is a standardized framework developed by OpenAI, to integrate merchant ecosystems directly into ChatGPT’s conversational environment.

It's composed of two components:

The Product Feed

This is a structured data file (typically in TSV, CSV, XML, or JSON) that contains the merchant’s catalog information: titles, descriptions, prices, images, inventory status, and other metadata.

Merchants either supply this directly or through a supported commerce platform. The feed enables ChatGPT to search, display, and recommend products contextually when a user expresses interest.

The Agentic Checkout Specification

This is a set of APIs that allow ChatGPT to execute transactions securely. Through these endpoints, ChatGPT can create checkout sessions, process payments, and confirm orders on behalf of the user, all within the chat window.

Together, these two layers make it possible for a conversational AI to function as both a discovery engine and a commerce facilitator.

This is a radical departure from traditional web-based commerce. Instead of sending users to a website or app, ACP brings the store to the conversation itself, seamlessly integrating dialogue, recommendation, and transaction into one continuous experience.

The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) is a standardized framework developed by OpenAI, to integrate merchant ecosystems directly into ChatGPT’s conversational environment. It consists of two components: the Product Feed and the Agentic Checkout Specification. The Product Feed is a structured data file containing the merchant’s catalog information, enabling ChatGPT to recommend products contextually. The Agentic Checkout Specification is a set of APIs that allow ChatGPT to execute transactions securely. Together, these components enable a conversational AI to function as both a discovery engine and a commerce facilitator, integrating dialogue, recommendation, and transaction into one seamless experience.