Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)
The Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) is Google's open standard for letting an AI agent authorize and execute a payment on a shopper's behalf. It uses a digitally signed mandate that proves the shopper approved the purchase.
How it works
A mandate is a signed piece of permission: it records that the shopper agreed to buy a specific thing under specific terms, so the payment can be trusted as authorized rather than something the agent invented. AP2 is designed to work alongside Google's Universal Commerce Protocol, which handles the products and cart, while AP2 handles the payment.
A commerce example
For an agentic checkout to be safe, everyone in the chain needs proof the shopper actually approved the purchase. AP2 is the layer that carries that proof in Google's stack.
What this means for your store
This is payment-provider and platform territory, not something an owner implements. Your part is making sure the product, price, and policy data are complete and accurate so a purchase can complete cleanly.