Agentic commerce,
in plain English.
A new acronym ships every month. Here is what each one actually means for a brand — and which ones matter.
Agentic commerce
Commerce where an AI agent — not a person clicking around a website — searches, compares, negotiates, and completes purchases on the buyer's behalf. The interface is a conversation; the transaction happens agent-to-agent.
A2A
The interaction pattern of agentic commerce: the customer's AI talks directly to the brand's systems (or the brand's agent). No web page in between — structured context in, decisions out.
AI shopping agent
The buyer-side agent: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Meta AI, Rufus, or a private assistant. It builds shortlists from structured brand context and can carry a purchase through to checkout.
Brand agent
The brand-side counterpart: an AI that knows your catalog, claims, voice, and constraints, and represents you on every surface — your site, ChatGPT, Meta, TikTok — consistently and under your control.
Context
Everything an agent needs to represent a brand correctly: products, pricing logic, brand knowledge, claims, constraints. Defined once, then compiled into every channel's native format.
ACP
The transaction rail introduced by OpenAI and Stripe. It standardizes how an agent carries a checkout — cart, payment, confirmation — so purchases complete inside agent conversations.
UCP
Google's commerce protocol (2026), co-built with Shopify, Etsy, Target, Wayfair, and Walmart. Semantic, compact product schema designed for agents rather than keyword search.
MCP
The open standard for connecting AI models to tools and data sources. MCP Apps extends it with interactive interfaces, so an agent can render rich product experiences, not just text.
Agent Skills
A cross-vendor packaging standard (SKILL.md) for giving agents new capabilities. A brand shipped as a skill can be installed directly into the agents customers already use — Claude, Codex, ChatGPT.
CPS
Pricing where the platform earns a commission only on completed, attributed sales. Nile's model: 2–15% by category, nothing up front.
MOR
The legal seller of a transaction. In Nile's model the brand remains the merchant of record — the order, the customer, and the data land in the brand's own store.
GEO / AEO
Optimizing content to be cited by AI answers. Useful for visibility — but it doesn't put products on the agentic shelf, complete transactions, or attribute sales. See how it compares to a backend approach.
Attribution
Proving a sale came from a channel. Nile counts conservatively: a purchase must click through a Nile-powered surface and complete in your checkout to be attributed — zero-click exposure doesn't count.
Agentic checkout
A purchase completed by an agent on the buyer's behalf — either inside the conversation (via ACP/UCP rails) or by handing off to the brand's own checkout with the cart pre-built.
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