WooCommerce agentic checkout: ChatGPT, Google, Copilot

One official WooCommerce agentic checkout route exists today: the Stripe for WooCommerce extension plus Stripe’s Agentic Commerce Suite, which WooCommerce’s hub still labels “Coming soon” behind a Stripe waitlist and which stores on WooPayments “can’t use it yet”. Each AI channel sets its own access rules: ChatGPT takes feed applications, Google runs an interest form, Copilot requires a Microsoft Merchant Center account, and PayPal’s Store Sync is by request.

The one official route: Stripe for WooCommerce

WooCommerce’s Agentic Commerce hub lists two checkout protocols for stores, Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and the Stripe-based Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), and marks both “Coming soon.” Its line for the Stripe path is short: “Agentic checkout is coming to Stripe for WooCommerce.” The hub tells merchants to install the extension now, upload the catalog to Stripe’s Agentic Commerce Suite once the feature is live, and keep the decision over “which agents to sell through and where shoppers check out.”

WooCommerce announced on December 11, 2025 that it is a launch partner for the Suite, that the Suite “will be available to WooCommerce users through the official Stripe extension,” and that merchants should join Stripe’s waitlist. In the same announcement, Stripe “handles discovery, checkout, payments, and fraud protection” while the store keeps its existing WooCommerce and Stripe stack. WooCommerce’s merchant guide to selling through AI adds the caveat that matters most for which stores can use the route at all: it works through the Stripe extension specifically, so stores running WooPayments “can’t use it yet.” The same guide asks merchants who already have Stripe connected to check that they are on the waitlist for the agent features.

Geography comes from Stripe’s own seller documentation, which says “ACS is available in the US, Canada, and select European countries” and lists them, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and most of the EU and EEA. Shared Payment Tokens, the payment primitive agents use on a shopper’s behalf, carry the same scope: agents, customers and sellers in the US, Canada and select European countries.

Agent selection sits in the Stripe Dashboard rather than in WordPress. Stripe’s retail guide tells sellers to “Find the agent you want to sell through and review its terms,” then request a connection that the agent must accept. To stop selling through a given agent, you disable it on the same page.

What the Stripe extension’s agentic commerce feature does

The feature’s shape is documented in the plugin’s changelog, which is the most specific published description of the merchant controls.

• Catalog and inventory feeds. Version 10.5.0 (March 9, 2026) added “the base CSV feed for agentic commerce.” Version 10.6.0 (April 20, 2026) added incremental inventory sync that tracks stock changes through WooCommerce hooks and uploads a minimal inventory feed CSV to Stripe one minute after the first change.
• Settings and monitoring. Version 10.7.0 (May 12, 2026) added an Agentic Commerce settings screen with an onboarding guide, an enable/disable toggle and webhook secret management, plus an admin dashboard for feed sync status, history, errors and manual syncs.
• Where the shopper actually pays. Version 10.9.0 (August 17, 2026) added a checkout mode that “redirects shoppers to your store to check out” instead of completing the purchase in the AI agent.
• Per-product exclusion. The same release put an “Agentic Commerce” exclude toggle on the product editor’s Inventory tab. Version 11.0.0 (September 8, 2026) added bulk edit, quick edit, and a sync-status column and filter on the Products list.
• Products held back automatically. WooCommerce Subscriptions products are excluded from the feed (10.9.0), as are password-protected products and products hidden from the catalog (11.0.0).
• Coupons. Version 10.9.0 documented that “WooCommerce coupons do not apply to in-agent agentic purchases” and rejects discounted agentic sessions with an explicit error.
• Overselling. The same release reserves stock when agentic checkout orders complete so concurrent sessions cannot oversell, and “orders losing the race are set on-hold” instead of driving stock negative.
• Switching off. Version 11.0.0 takes already-synced products out of in-agent checkout when the feature is disabled, by pushing a final catalog feed.

How an agent order reaches WooCommerce

On the Stripe side, Stripe sends a checkout.session.completed event after an agent completes an order, and each order generates a unique event. The Stripe extension creates the WooCommerce order from that webhook, and payment capture follows the capture setting in the Stripe Agentic Commerce dashboard, per the changelog for 10.9.0.

Feed quality is not cosmetic here. Stripe states that it “calculates tax at checkout using the values in your catalog feed,” and that incomplete configuration can cause checkouts to fail. Its recommended cadence is product data once a day, with inventory and pricing refreshed every 15 minutes.

The experimental agentic routes in WooCommerce core

WooCommerce core briefly carried its own endpoints. Release 10.4, published December 10, 2025, added an “Agentic Commerce checkout sessions route and complete endpoint (experimental)” along with webhook functionality for the protocol. The 11.2.0 pre-release notes of September 21, 2026 removed them, describing the change as the removal of two default-off experiments “including the wc/agentic/v1 routes with no replacement endpoint.” Core’s current stable release is 11.2.1, dated October 9, 2026. Agent checkout now lives in the payment extension.

ChatGPT: discovery now, checkout on your site

OpenAI changed direction on March 24, 2026. Its post on product discovery says the company is “allowing merchants to use their own checkout experiences” while it concentrates on discovery, and that merchants share product feeds and promotions through ACP so catalogs are represented in ChatGPT, with “multiple delivery paths, including through third-party providers like Salesforce and Stripe.”

The merchant page states the current answer to the question shoppers and merchants both ask: ChatGPT is “moving away from a standalone Instant Checkout experience,” and “purchases are completed on merchant-owned websites or apps.” Shopping “is currently live for ChatGPT users in the U.S.” Merchants who have applied are on the waitlist, and the application form asks for headquarters country, website, primary product categories and feed size in SKUs.

Feed onboarding is gated. OpenAI’s developer guide says product feeds in ChatGPT are “currently available to approved partners” and points applicants to a form. Once approved, the file upload spec describes SFTP uploads in parquet, jsonl.gz, csv.gz or tsv.gz, with the recommendation to send the entire feed once a day and push updates through the API during the day; promotions data can only be provided via the API. The products spec requires the nine fields in basic product data, notes that “Search defaults to enabled and checkout to disabled,” and warns that “Checkout requires a separately enabled integration,” so setting an eligibility flag does not complete checkout onboarding.

A feed is not the only way in. OpenAI’s merchant page says a feed is not required if ChatGPT already crawls your site, but feeds give more control over how products appear, and that most merchants start with feeds while apps suit larger merchants. Separately, shopping research reads public retail pages, and OpenAI points merchants who want to appear there to an allowlisting process. OpenAI’s developer guide also lists prohibited products, among them adult content, age-restricted goods such as alcohol, nicotine and gambling, weapons, prescription-only medications, unlicensed financial products and legally restricted goods, with removal of a product or a seller ban as possible corrective actions.

Google AI Mode, Gemini and UCP

Google’s checkout inside AI surfaces runs on Merchant Center data. Its help article limits the scope to “products with eligibility in the United States, Canada, and Australia” and for participating merchants and partners, and states that “The checkout feature enabled by UCP is available for select merchants at this time.” Only listings carrying the native_commerce(checkout_eligibility) attribute “will display the ‘Buy’ button” for the experience.

Onboarding runs in two parts: complete the technical implementation in the UCP developer guide first, then fill out the interest form and wait to be selected. Google also tells merchants on a third-party platform to “connect directly with them” about that platform’s UCP plans.

The Merchant Center requirements are concrete. You need an account “in good standing and approved products for free listings,” at least one customer support contact, and a return policy that lists return cost, the return window and a link to the full policy, because it is a merchant-of-record requirement shown on the checkout screen. The checkout attribute defaults to false, and a product with it missing is not eligible. The same page lists categories that are ineligible for checkout: subscriptions and installments, personalized goods, non-new or final sale items, pre-orders, bundled services, freight and other special shipping, gifting, in-store activation, age-restricted items such as alcohol and tobacco, prohibited content including weapons, adult material, healthcare and pharmaceuticals and counterfeits, services, rentals and virtual items, and software dependencies.

On payments, Google’s UCP FAQ says you do not need to support the Google Pay API on your own site or app, but “your Payment Service Provider (PSP) must be able to process our tokens.” At launch, a UCP integration powers AI Mode in Google Search and the Gemini web and mobile apps.

For WooCommerce stores, the published position is catalog groundwork. The Agentic Commerce hub says Google for WooCommerce “Syncs your product catalog to Google Merchant Center, making your products visible to Google AI,” and marks UCP “Coming soon.” WooCommerce’s merchant guide frames Google’s version as still being built, and advises getting the feed ready now.

Microsoft Copilot Checkout

Microsoft publishes its eligibility rules in one place. The agentic commerce page says “Only English‑language merchants who sell to US buyers are eligible at this time (supporting USD),” and that “To onboard to Copilot Checkout, you must have an MMC account,” with a product feed required to power discovery and checkout. Feed work includes native checkout eligibility per product, product warnings where needed, and a unique Merchant Item ID.

Checkout runs through a payment partner. Microsoft names PayPal, Shopify and Stripe, says “Copilot Checkout supports a single PSP checkout partner per merchant,” and answers the obvious question directly: existing Stripe or PayPal customers are not integrated automatically, because the experience is opt-in and “requires additional support from Stripe and PayPal.” For a WooCommerce store, the documented way in is the same one WooCommerce names, since Microsoft describes Stripe’s Agentic Commerce Suite as “a turnkey solution to sell on Microsoft Copilot and other AI agents.” Copilot Checkout began rolling out in the U.S. on Copilot.com on January 8, 2026, with partner activation across PayPal, Shopify and Stripe.

Perplexity Instant Buy and PayPal Store Sync

Perplexity’s Instant Buy help article, last modified August 28, 2026, says the company supports it only “with merchants who are compatible with our agentic checkout experience,” and that its answer engine is more likely to recommend merchants who supply deeper product details such as availability, reviews, pricing and specifications. PayPal, announcing the partnership on November 25, 2025, said it “enables the transaction to happen instantly within the AI interface and keeps the retailer in control as the merchant of record.”

The merchant-side product is PayPal Store Sync, updated August 11, 2026. It supports merchants selling physical goods to US-based customers in USD, and “It does not support digital goods, subscription products,” or sales to customers outside the US at this time. Access is by request: merchants complete a form to contact PayPal’s AI team. Perplexity’s earlier merchant program post of November 18, 2024 aimed the program at large retailers and said it is free for merchants.

Channel comparison

Fees the companies publish

Four numbers and statements are on the record. Stripe’s pricing page lists US card processing at “2.9% + 30¢ per successful transaction + 1.5% for international transactions,” and lists Shared Payment Tokens at “$0.15 per SPT issued.” OpenAI’s merchant page says “There are no fees on purchases that start in ChatGPT,” and that merchants send shoppers to their own site or app by default with no fees for purchases made there. Microsoft states that “Microsoft does not take a commission or affiliate fee,” with merchants remaining the merchant of record and payments running on existing rails. Google’s UCP pages set out requirements rather than a merchant fee.

Merchant of record, refunds and chargebacks

Every channel documented here leaves the seller relationship with the store. OpenAI’s commerce documentation says “OpenAI and other trusted payment service providers are not the merchant of record,” that customers see the merchant’s name on their card statement, and that “Settlement, refunds, chargebacks, and compliance remain with the merchant and their PSP,” with an ORDER_UPDATE webhook to notify ChatGPT when a refund or chargeback status changes. Google says “You will remain the seller of record,” that your terms and conditions cover the purchase as if the customer checked out on your own site, and that real-time inventory checks are your responsibility as merchant of record. Microsoft says “You are the merchant of record. Copilot does not become merchant of record.” Perplexity directs shoppers with questions about availability, shipping, prices or fulfillment to the brand or retailer.

For the Stripe route, refunds use the machinery you already have. Stripe’s management guide says that if you already use the Checkout Sessions API or Payment Intents API, “your existing refund flow works without changes for agentic checkouts,” and that refunds and disputes are handled on the Transactions page in the Dashboard. WooCommerce’s framing of the whole arrangement is that the sale closes in the assistant while “the customer, the order, and fulfillment stay with your store.” The one visible gap in parity with your own checkout is discounts: the Stripe extension’s changelog states that WooCommerce coupons do not apply to in-agent purchases.

WooCommerce MCP and the Abilities API

MCP is often discussed alongside agentic checkout, and it answers a different question. WooCommerce’s developer documentation says the MCP implementation is “currently in developer preview,” with implementation details and APIs subject to change. The purpose-built abilities cover product management (query with filtering and pagination, create, update, delete) and order management (query orders, update order status, add order notes). WooCommerce’s merchant post is blunt about the limit: the built-in abilities are limited to product and order CRUD, and the company’s guide says MCP “helps AI assistants manage a store,” not check out shoppers.

If you turn it on, the documentation’s own cautions are worth following. Order and customer operations may expose personally identifiable information including names, email addresses, physical addresses and payment details, so the docs advise least-privilege scopes, regular key rotation and “a dedicated WordPress user with only the capabilities the MCP client needs.” Remote connections use a WordPress username with an Application Password against /wp-json/mcp/mcp-adapter-default-server, and the older WooCommerce-specific endpoint “is deprecated and should not be used for new integrations.” The merchant post points to WP Admin > WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Features to enable the feature, and recommends a staging site plus Node.js 22 or newer.

Underneath sits the Abilities API, introduced in WordPress 6.9, which registers WordPress functionality in a standardized, discoverable, typed and executable form, with the MCP Adapter letting AI tools call those abilities. Payment extensions register their own and keep them off by default: the Stripe extension’s abilities ship “default off; opt in via the wc_stripe_abilities_enabled filter” per the changelog for 10.8.0. WooCommerce’s Claude Commerce Agent reference of September 16, 2026 shows the same boundary from the shopper side, and is explicit that it is built for experimentation and not maintained in an official capacity: “The assistant never places an order or takes payment.”

What to do this month

1. If you process cards with the Stripe extension, confirm you are on the waitlist for the agent features, as WooCommerce’s guide asks. If you run WooPayments, this route is not open to you yet.
2. Treat the catalog feed as the product. Stripe calculates tax from feed values, and its cadence guidance is product data daily with inventory and pricing every 15 minutes.
3. Decide exclusions before access arrives. The per-product toggle sits on the Inventory tab, with bulk and quick edit on the Products list, and subscriptions, password-protected and catalog-hidden products are held back automatically.
4. Decide where the payment happens: in the agent, or through the checkout mode that redirects shoppers to your store.
5. Check how your store handles discounts without coupons, since WooCommerce coupons do not apply to in-agent purchases.
6. Keep Google Merchant Center healthy: an account in good standing, approved free listings, a return policy with cost and window, and a support contact are UCP prerequisites.
7. Apply where applications exist: OpenAI’s merchant form, Google’s interest form, a Microsoft Merchant Center account for Copilot Checkout, and PayPal’s Store Sync request form.
8. If you want an assistant managing the store, enable WooCommerce MCP on staging with an Application Password and a least-privilege user, per the developer docs.

How we checked this

Facts checked on October 14, 2026. Every figure, date and quotation here comes from a primary page: WooCommerce’s own marketing and developer sites, the Stripe for WooCommerce changelog in the WordPress.org plugin repository, and merchant and developer documentation published by OpenAI, Stripe, Google, Microsoft, PayPal and Perplexity. Where a company states a rule, we quote it rather than summarize it, and where a company publishes no number, none appears above.