How AI is rewriting commerce. Notes from the protocol layer.
Working notes on agentic commerce, GEO, and ACP / UCP / WebMCP. What AI assistants actually do at the moment of purchase, and what it takes to be the brand they pick.
Six posts. Each one earns its place.
The Checkout Wars: ChatGPT vs. Perplexity vs. Google
AI shopping assistants like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google are no longer just recommending products. They are deciding what gets purchased through in-assistant checkout. Brands that win aren’t the loudest; they’re the ones whose catalog data is clean, complete, and transactable across all three platforms.
ACP vs UCP vs WebMCP: What Every Brand Needs to Know
Your team hits revenue targets, your paid search is efficient, your PDPs are polished. Yet a high-intent shopper asks an AI assistant for the best option in your category and your product is never mentioned. Not because your offer is weak. Because the assistant cannot confidently interpret your catalog data, so demand flows to a competitor instead.
The Era of AI Shopping: The 2026 Definition for Retailers
Last quarter looked fine on your dashboards. Pricing was competitive. Reviews were strong. Yet a competitor’s product keeps getting picked when shoppers ask an AI assistant what to buy. The reason: your product data is not clearly understood or trusted at the moment of AI-driven choice, so demand quietly leaks elsewhere.
How AI Shopping Assistants Actually Decide What to Recommend: The SKU-Level Truth
AI-driven referrals to ecommerce sites have grown 752% year over year. Yet many brands still optimize for rankings while missing the real gatekeeper: AI assistants that decide which specific SKUs get recommended.
SEO vs GEO: Why Traditional Search Optimization Isn’t Enough Anymore
SEO gets you ranked. GEO gets you recommended by AI. Modern retail brands need both to stay visible.
What Is AI Commerce? 2026 Guide for Retail Leaders
Something strange showed up in the data this summer. A mid-size electronics retailer we work with noticed a new traffic source in their analytics. Not Google. Not Instagram. Not TikTok. It was ChatGPT.