Google in partnership with some large retailers like Walmart just announced an open API Standard for AI Agents called UCP, Universal Commerce Protocol to directly perform actions in Webshops bypassing the traditional browser. It is HTTPS/2 & JSON based, listening on a custom port. There is already a GitHub with Python source code for a Server. This introduces a new phase in E-Commerce related to AI, instead of having agents do actions through the traditional web browser, there will soon be an AI layer that directly interacts with API's & databases. This makes things more understandable for AI's and make Agentic AI webpage interaction Universal and simplistic through it's own channel. Companies will run their own API Server on a custom port and AI agents will directly communicate with this service.
ChatGPT was the start of a new phase in automation, but LLM's are not limited to OpenAI as Google & Meta quickly showed by releasing their own applications. This has started a race amongst some of the most cash liquid companies in the world, with a lot of business & advertising effectiveness data. Meanwhile in the background, robotics is affecting industries everywhere, from warehouses to self-driving. And capital is in abundance. The next phase will probably mean more adoption in self-driving taxi's, and more robot assistance in the services sector. At the same time the AI platforms seem to be rolling out the concept of agents.