On Tuesday, Google announced a new public agreement, supported by AI agents (an automated software program that can shop and decide on behalf of users) and supported by more than 60 merchants and financial institutions. The system is called the “Agent Payment Agreement” (AP2), which should be interoperable between the AI platform, payment system and supplier, providing traceable paper tracking for each transaction.
In an article announcing the deal, Google executives highlighted their commitment to openness. Stavan Parikh and Rao Surapaneni, VPS for Google and Google Cloud, wrote: “We are committed to an open collaborative process through standards bodies, including developing the agreement through standards bodies and inviting the entire payment and technology community to build this future with us.”
The complete specification of AP2 is Post to Github Combined with announcements.
The protocol is built for the future where AI agents typically buy products on behalf of customers and engage in complex real-time interactions with retailers’ AI agents. An example from Google post imagines chatbot users asking their agents to shop for bike trips, which triggers a spontaneous time-sensitive bundle for bike store agents.
In another example, the user requests a trip and accommodation weekend holiday, providing only dates, locations, and budgets. “The agent can then interact with airlines and hotel agents, online travel agencies and booking platforms, and once a combination that is suitable for the budget, it can perform bookings that perform password signatures simultaneously,” the post explained.
It is complicated to achieve such transactions from a technical and social perspective. AP2 requires the agent to make two separate approvals before the purchase: first with the “intention authorization” (essentially telling the AI, “I’m looking for a dot neck tie”), which allows the agent to search for specific items and negotiate with the seller; then, once a specific item is found, a “cart authorization” will be obtained to finally approve the purchase.
The agreement also contains provisions for fully automatic purchases, which allow the agent to automatically generate a trolley authorization once the project is found. These situations require more detailed intent tasks, specifying price limits, timing and other rules of participation. In either case, the goal is to maintain a auditable trail that can be re-examined in fraud cases.
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Google partnered with Coinbase, Metamask and the Ethereum Foundation to create an extension that integrates crypto-oriented X402 protocolallows purchase of AI-powered from crypto wallets.
Many other tech companies are developing their own proxy procurement systems – most notably confusing, which allows the purchase of Pro Service in their proxy browsers. Payment provider Fringe also produces software tools Agents for purchasing on their platformalthough they are not as comprehensive as AP2.
Like any protocol, the impact of AP2 will depend on the support of other players in its ecosystem – most notably developers building agent procurement systems. But AP2 has won backing from major financial providers such as MasterCard, American Express and PayPal, giving the agreement a large immediate footprint.
