Shopify has moved in the opposite direction from retailers like Amazon and Adidas, which are reportedly blocking AI agents from completing purchases on their platforms. On Monday, Shopify announced that browser-based AI agents can now complete purchases on Shopify merchants’ sites, extending their capabilities beyond product search and cart building.

Shopify previously supported WebMCP on its storefronts and carts, letting browser-based agents search inventory, find products, and add them to a cart. The new addition of WebMCP support for checkout, including Shop Pay, means agents can now read the checkout screen, update it, and submit the transaction with the buyer’s authorization. According to Shopify, this works without relying on screenshots or scraping webpages.

The update introduces three new tools: get_checkout, update_checkout, and complete_checkout. These allow agents to inspect a checkout, change details such as the customer’s address or delivery option, and place an order after the buyer authorizes it. The feature is rolling out to all eligible Shopify merchants, according to Gil Greenberg, Shopify‘s staff product manager for agentic commerce, in a post on X.

Shopify already offers a hosted Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, which enables agents to work server-to-server. WebMCP, by contrast, is a proposed standard designed for agents operating inside the buyer’s browser. Both leverage Shopify‘s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), which provides a common way to search for and discover products, build carts, and check out.

Top AI agents like Muse and Instinct already have direct partnerships with Shopify for agentic commerce; the Instinct partnership was announced today. Greenberg explained the approach on X: “If your agent is operating in the buyer’s browser, use WebMCP tools provided on storefront and checkout to efficiently complete order placement, instead of navigating HTML built for humans.” He added that these tools provide structured, efficient APIs intentionally designed via UCP to ensure accurate commerce facts, required disclosures, and handoff requirements.