Shopify opens checkout to browser-based AI agents

Shopify is extending WebMCP support to checkout, allowing browser-based AI agents to complete purchases on merchants’ sites with a buyer’s authorization.

The company said the update builds on existing WebMCP support for Shopify storefronts and carts, which lets agents search merchant inventories and add products to a cart. With support for checkout, including Shop Pay, agents can read checkout details, update information such as a customer’s address or delivery option, and submit a transaction after the buyer authorizes it. Shopify says the process does not rely on screenshots or webpage scraping.

The update adds three tools: get_checkout, update_checkout, and complete_checkout. They let agents inspect a checkout, make changes, and place an order once authorized. The feature is rolling out to all eligible Shopify merchants, according to Gil Greenberg, a staff product manager working on agentic commerce at Shopify.

Shopify also offers a hosted Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for server-to-server agent interactions. WebMCP is a proposed standard for agents operating in a buyer’s browser. Both use Shopify’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), which supports product discovery, cart building, and checkout. AI agents Muse and Instinct already have direct partnerships with Shopify for agentic commerce; Shopify announced the Instinct partnership the same day as the checkout update.