How AI Agents Pay: Checkout in ChatGPT and Google AI Mode — Sam Parsons, PayPal

This talk details three distinct protocols and integration patterns for enabling AI agents to perform financial transactions: the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) used with ChatGPT, the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) used with Google AI Mode, and a custom MCP app with an external checkout. It emphasizes the security benefits of tokenization, where sensitive card details are abstracted away from the agent and merchant's PCI scope. The talk also covers the trade-offs between in-agent checkout (offering a seamless user experience) and external checkout handoffs (providing merchants with greater control over the UI and user journey). Key integration points and the constraints applied to tokens (merchant, amount, currency, expiry) are explained.