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Tactical Guide - Updated May 2026

ACP Integration Checklist for Retailers

The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), developed by Stripe and OpenAI, powers ChatGPT Shopping and Microsoft Copilot product discovery. This is the integration checklist most retailers actually need - what to do, in what order, and what verifies done.

Pre-integration audit

Three things to confirm before writing a line of code: your platform's ACP path, your catalog's structured attribute completeness, and your processor's ACP support.

Confirm your integration path

  • Shopify merchants: auto-enrolled via Shopify Agentic Storefronts (April 2026 expansion to all 5.6M stores). Skip to "Catalog audit" below.
  • Magento, BigCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, custom platforms: integrate via Stripe ACP. 2-4 weeks engineering.
  • Enterprise merchants: OpenAI commerce platform direct. 3-6 months, custom contract.
  • Mid-market multi-channel: infrastructure providers (Paz.ai) handle ACP, UCP, and other protocols in one integration. 2 weeks ingestion to live.

Catalog audit

Before integration, identify the gaps. Most catalogs score 30-60% on structured-attribute completeness. The required ACP fields are: product ID, title, description, price, availability, image URL, category. The high-leverage optional fields are: structured attributes (size, color, material, fit, dimensions per category), variants, GTIN, brand, condition, ratings.

Confirm processor ACP support

ACP runs on Stripe rails by default. If your processor is Stripe-native, you are clear. If your processor is Adyen, Worldpay, Fiserv, or another, confirm they support ACP-compliant transactions or plan a Stripe-as-checkout-only architecture.

Step 1: Catalog format and feed generation

Format your catalog to the ACP feed spec (JSONL) with required and optional fields. Most platforms have a tool or partner; custom platforms write a generator.

The ChatGPT product feed format is JSONL with required and optional fields. ACP-compliant catalogs include:

Required fields (every product)

  • id: unique product identifier
  • title: product-accurate title (no marketing copy here, save it for description)
  • description: 200-2000 characters, natural-language, mentions occasion / use case / season where relevant
  • price: current price with currency code
  • availability: in_stock / out_of_stock / preorder / backorder
  • image_url: primary product image, 800x800px or larger
  • category: Google product taxonomy or category-equivalent path

Optional but high-leverage fields

  • gtin: GTIN-12, GTIN-13, GTIN-14, or UPC. Strongest matching signal.
  • brand: brand name (vs retailer name)
  • condition: new / refurbished / used
  • variants: structured array of size, color, material, fit per variant SKU
  • structured_attributes: category-specific (e.g. for apparel: fit_type, fabric_composition, care, country_of_origin; for outdoor: activity_fit, weather_rating, weight_class; for beauty: skin_type, finish, ingredient_flags)
  • ratings: aggregateRating + reviewCount
  • shipping: per-zip lead time + cost where available

Where things go wrong

Marketing-rewritten titles ("Effortless Summer Statement") fail to match structured queries. Missing GTINs drop you out of competitive product clusters. Stale availability data (nightly feed cadence) tanks ranking signal during real-time agent sessions. Use webhook-based or short-interval feeds where possible.

Step 2: ACP endpoint registration

Register your endpoint with OpenAI's commerce platform (direct or via Stripe). The handshake is well-known: discovery, catalog query, click-through redirect.

ACP defines a discovery and transaction handshake between AI agents and your catalog:

  1. Discovery. AI agents query a known endpoint to fetch your product catalog. Endpoint convention is your domain plus a Stripe-managed or self-hosted ACP route.
  2. Query. Agents filter by structured attributes, query against the catalog, and surface products matching consumer intent.
  3. Click-through redirect. When a consumer selects a product in ChatGPT, the agent redirects them to your merchant page. The consumer completes the transaction on your site (in-chat checkout was deprecated March 2026).

Registration paths:

  • Stripe ACP: register via Stripe Dashboard. Stripe handles ACP-compliance signaling on your behalf.
  • OpenAI direct: enterprise merchants register through OpenAI's commerce platform, get review and approval.
  • Infrastructure provider: handles registration as part of catalog onboarding.

Initial indexing typically takes 24-72 hours after registration.

Step 3: Verification and monitoring

Verify by manual ChatGPT queries. Monitor by AI visibility tools and PostHog/GA4 chatgpt.com referrer tracking. Most issues found in the first 30 days are catalog data quality.

Manual verification (first 72 hours)

  • Search inside ChatGPT for your product categories: "looking for [your category] under $X"
  • Confirm products appear in the carousel with image, price, rating, and merchant link
  • Click the merchant link, verify it redirects to your product page (not a 404 or wrong product)
  • Test the same query from multiple device types and browsers (results vary by ChatGPT session state)

Ongoing monitoring

  • Referrer tracking: PostHog / GA4 filter by chatgpt.com referrer to see ChatGPT-driven sessions on your site.
  • AI visibility platforms: continuous monitoring of where your products appear in AI agent results across query categories. Paz.ai's Monitor product is purpose-built for this.
  • Manual sampling: weekly check of 10-20 representative product queries to verify ranking position.

Common 30-day issues

If products do not appear within 72 hours of submission, the issue is almost always catalog data quality, not the integration itself. Check: structured attribute completeness, GTIN presence, freshness of inventory and price, category taxonomy consistency. An AI Readiness check is the fastest way to identify which gaps are blocking visibility.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP)?+
ACP is an open-source protocol developed by Stripe and OpenAI under Apache 2.0 license. It defines how AI agents discover and recommend products, coordinate with merchant catalogs, and direct users to merchant sites. ACP powers ChatGPT Shopping product discovery and Microsoft Copilot shopping. See the ACP glossary entry for the full technical breakdown.
Do I need to integrate ACP if I am already on Shopify?+
No, Shopify merchants are auto-enrolled via Shopify Agentic Storefronts (April 2026 expansion to all 5.6M Shopify stores). The integration work for Shopify merchants is catalog quality (structured attributes, GTIN coverage, real-time inventory feeds), not protocol-level integration. Other platforms (Magento, BigCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, custom) integrate ACP via Stripe or an infrastructure provider.
How long does ACP integration take?+
Shopify merchants are immediately enrolled. Stripe ACP integration for other platforms takes 2-4 weeks of engineering. Direct OpenAI commerce platform onboarding takes 3-6 months. Infrastructure providers (like Paz.ai) take 2 weeks from catalog ingestion to live, including the protocol layer plus initial catalog optimization.
What does ACP cost merchants?+
Product discovery and visibility in ChatGPT Shopping via ACP is free. There is no listing fee or transaction fee for appearing in product recommendations. Standard payment processing fees apply when customers purchase on your site after clicking through from ChatGPT (in-chat checkout was deprecated March 2026, so transactions clear via your existing processor). The optional ACP-enabled checkout layer charges 4% on top of standard processing if you opt in.
How does ACP relate to UCP and MCP?+
ACP focuses on checkout and product discovery (Stripe / OpenAI). UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol) covers the full commerce journey from discovery through post-purchase including cart, payment, order tracking, returns (Google / Shopify, launched NRF 2026). MCP (Model Context Protocol) provides the data connectivity layer used by both (Anthropic, donated to Linux Foundation). Most retailers will need both ACP and UCP: ACP for ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, UCP for Google AI Mode.

Related

See How Your Catalog Stacks Up

Run an AI Readiness check on your catalog. See your found rate across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity. Identify the attribute gaps blocking visibility.

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