The vocabulary of agentic commerce

An artificial-intelligence system able to act toward a goal: search, compare, decide and execute actions — including purchases — with a degree of autonomy defined by its user.

Commercial transactions in which an AI agent acts on behalf of a buyer: it searches for products, compares offers, builds the cart and completes the purchase, under the user's mandate and control.

The authorization — possibly cryptographically signed (see AP2) — by which a user defines what their agent may buy: scope, budget, approved suppliers, recurrence.

The completion of a purchase executed by an agent: cart building, payment application and confirmation, without the user visiting the merchant's site.

A structured data flow (prices, stock, variants, attributes) exposing a catalog to platforms and agents. The most direct entry point to agentic surfaces.

Standardized markup (schema.org: Product, Offer, Organization…) that makes a page's content machine-readable. The first thing an agent reads on a merchant site.

Generative Engine Optimization: optimizing content to be understood, retained and cited by generative engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity…) — the continuation of SEO in the age of single answers.

A text file placed at a site's root to present its essential content and structure to AI models, in a condensed, machine-readable form.

Said of a site or catalog prepared for agentic commerce: reliable, structured data, clean feeds, machine-readable terms of sale, and access points exposed to agents.

A service exposing a system's data (catalog, stock) and actions (quote, order) via the Model Context Protocol, so that any compatible agent can connect to it.

The entity legally responsible for the sale: collecting payment, invoicing, taxes and the customer relationship. In current agentic protocols, this role stays with the merchant, not the AI platform.

The initial exchange between an agent and a merchant to establish what is technically possible: browse the catalog, build a cart, pay, link a customer account.