Machine-to-Machine (M2M) Commerce

Machine-to-machine (M2M) commerce refers to transactional processes in which digital agents or systems interact independently with each other to search for, compare and negotiate goods or services and make purchasing or sales decisions. Software agents perform tasks such as product searches, price and condition comparisons, availability checks, checkouts and after-sales communication on behalf of suppliers and customers - without each individual step being triggered by humans.

In the context of agentic commerce, shopping agents orchestrate the entire purchasing process across multiple retailers, while agentic sales agents on the supplier side provide structured information, personalized offers and service responses. M2M Commerce thus forms the infrastructural basis on which agentic purchasing and sales processes can run in an automated and scalable manner.

Open protocols and frameworks such as the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) presented by Google, which provides a common technical language for AI/shopping agents and retailer platforms, play a central role here. UCP defines interfaces for products, prices, checkout and support so that different agents and systems can trade with each other interoperably and carry out M2M transactions across ecosystem boundaries.

Sources:

• TechCrunch - "Google announces a new protocol to facilitate commerce using AI agents".

• Engadget - "Google's new commerce framework cranks up the heat on 'agentic shopping'".