Three Models for Agentic Commerce
There are three models for agentic commerce: agent-to-site, agent-to-agent, and brokered agent-to-site — and that third one (brokered) is essentially what we're building.
In 2025, nearly every major retailer and AI incumbent entered the race — Amazon expanded Rufus, OpenAI embedded checkout in ChatGPT, Perplexity rolled out an AI-powered browser, plus niche startups like Phia (price-comparison from Phoebe Gates) and OneOff (celebrity-look recommendations) are targeting specific shopping use cases. Everyone is building their own silo.
The Protocol Landscape Is Screaming for a Meta-Layer
Open-source protocols like MCP, A2A, AP2, ACP, UCP, and ERC-8004 now enable agents to read data, negotiate with other agents, establish on-chain identity, and transact safely.
Google and Shopify co-developed UCP as an open standard, endorsed by 20+ retailers including Target, Walmart, Visa, Stripe, and Mastercard.
PayPal launched its own "agent ready" and "store sync" agentic commerce services.
That's a ton of fragmented rails that consumers won't navigate themselves.
Why a Wrapper / Aggregator Wins
Cross-Agent Arbitrage
ChatGPT shopping finds different deals than Perplexity or Google AI Mode. An aggregator queries all of them and surfaces the best result.
Protocol Normalization
UCP, AP2, ACP are all different standards. Someone needs to abstract that complexity away from the consumer.
Agent Reputation & Trust
This is where 8004 Router and 8004 Watchtower come in. ERC-8004 launched on Ethereum mainnet in January 2026, establishing on-chain agent identity (Router) and permissionless reputation feeds (Watchtower). "Know your customer" is becoming "know your agent" — every transaction will need proof that an AI truly represents its user, and 8004 makes that proof verifiable.