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Splitit USA, Inc. is betting its adoption of Google Inc.’s Universal Commerce Protocol will simplify the purchasing process for consumers shopping with AI agents. It figures the protocol will bring more payment flexibility and predictable BNPL approvals that can help AI agents close a sale.
Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is an open standard designed to enable AI agents to handle, process, and securely and reliably complete agentic-commerce transactions.
One of the challenges facing agentic commerce for payments is that the technology shifts payments from a checkout step to part of the recommendation engine, James Wray, senior vice president and head of business development for Splitit says by email.
“AI can already find the right product. The challenge is whether the payment behind that recommendation will reliably close the sale,” Wray says. “If a payment option, [such as BNPL], makes a product more affordable, it can change what an AI agent recommends. Over time, payment methods that introduce uncertainty are likely to be deprioritized because AI agents will favor options they know can complete the transaction.”
As a card-linked BNPL service, Splitit aims to remove the uncertainty around BNPL approvals at checkout by allowing shoppers to break purchases into interest-free monthly installments using the available credit limit on their Visa and Mastercard credit cards to hold the balance. Traditional BNPL services require an application and credit check, which adds friction to the purchase and does not guarantee the consumer will be approved for the loan.
“Consumers who engage in agentic commerce want to simplify the buying process and avoid additional prompts or forms,” Wray says. “Splitit has always prioritized frictionless payments that use a consumer’s existing credit without needing additional underwriting or applications.”
Splitit adopted Google’s UCP because it provides universal access, as opposed to operating within a closed ecosystem on its own platform, and bridges the gap between search engines and agentic agents, the company says. In addition, Google will be the primary entry point for many consumers to agentic commerce, giving Splitit more access to consumers and merchants, Wray adds.
One reason Google is expected to be a primary entry point for consumers shopping with AI agents is its shopping graph. which indexes more than 50 billion product listings, with 2 billion updated every hour. “Google indexes far more products than Amazon can reach through Rufus,” Wray adds. “Google will be the primary entry point for many consumers, giving Splitit more access to both consumers and merchants.”
Rufus is Amazon.com’s AI-powered conversational shopping assistant that helps customers research products, compare options, and make informed purchasing decisions.
