Growing Ecommerce – The Retail Growth Podcast

Google’s UCP Explained: Will "Agentic Commerce" Replace Search in 2026?

• Smarter Ecommerce • Season 4 • Episode 22

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UCP (Universal Context Protocol) is a new infrastructure layer aiming to standardize “agentic commerce.” It breaks ecommerce into modular capabilities (“Lego bricks”) so AI agents can negotiate tasks like product discovery, checkout, and payments across platforms.

This has become an infrastructure war: Google is pushing UCP as an open-source standard versus OpenAI’s ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol) and Anthropic’s MCP (Model Context Protocol). Big retailers such as Walmart and Zalando are already experimenting with UCP right now.

In this episode of Growing Ecommerce, Mike Ryan and Christian Scharmüller unpack what “Agentic Commerce” means as AI shifts from generating text to taking actions in online shops—and what that implies for your data feed strategy.

In this episode, we cover:

• The Rise of UCP: how agents “negotiate” capabilities like discovery and checkout—similar to early standards wars (e.g., electricity).

• Adoption Reality Check: will consumers let AI buy their sneakers? Mike forecasts ~10% of UCP-based transactions within 2 years; Chris estimates ~5%.

• The Protocol War: how partnerships with giants (Walmart, Zalando) help Google try to win the standard.

• New Merchant Responsibilities: to reduce hallucinations, Google plans 10–12 new feeds/attributes, pushing more structured-data work back to retailers.

About the hosts:

Mike Ryan (Austria; originally Boston) is Head of Ecommerce Insights at Smarter Ecommerce (smec), with 10+ years in retail and PPC.

Christian Scharmüller is CCO & Managing Director at smec, a long-time PPC/ecommerce leader and frequent speaker (e.g., SMX, OMR).

Smarter Ecommerce (smec) helps e-commerce brands optimize PPC with AI-driven automation focused on profit and business outcomes, leveraging first-party data like margins and LTV.

Follow smec for more performance marketing insights:

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/smarter-ecommerce-gmbh

Subscribe for more actionable eCommerce insights!

#eCommerce #GoogleAds #UCP #AgenticCommerce #AI #DigitalMarketing #RetailTrends #GoogleMerchantCenter

smec is a Google Premier Partner and three-time Microsoft Retail Partner of the Year, managing €500M+ in ad spend and driving €5B+ in annual e-commerce revenue across 350+ global retail clients (incl. THG, Snipes, REWE, Intersport).

More:

Website: https://www.smarter-ecommerce.com

Newsletter: https://smarter-ecommerce.com/en/newsletter/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smarterecommerce/

Why it matters: if agents become the new storefront, whoever sets the protocol shapes access to customers, data standards, and product visibility—so feed quality and structured attributes really matter.

About Smarter Ecommerce (smec)

Smarter Ecommerce (smec) helps e-commerce brands scale profitably with AI-driven PPC automation—optimizing for business outcomes while keeping strategic control in the hands of marketers. The platform activates first-party data (e.g., margins, CLV, core business metrics) to automate campaign optimization toward profitability and efficient growth, with transparent insights that reduce manual work and free teams for strategic oversight.

As a Google Premier Partner and three-time Microsoft Retail Partner of the Year, smec manages €500M+ in ad spend and drives €5B+ in annual e-commerce revenue for 350+ global retail clients, including THG, Snipes, REWE, and Intersport.

Follow smec for performance marketing insights:

Website: smarter-ecommerce.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/smarter-ecommerce-gmbh

Newsletter: smarter-ecommerce.com/en/newsletter/

Instagram: instagram.com/smarterecommerce

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to Growing E commerce. We are your host, Mike Ryan of Smarter Ecommerce and For the ones who forgot me, Christian Schamuler. It's been a minute, Chris. Yeah, we're in February. A whole month has gone by. Yeah. What was the reason, actually? Uh so much stuff clearing. Yeah. So much.

SPEAKER_01:

But we're locked in again, huh?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, absolutely. I've already done I've done two webinars this year. I'm working on a report now and everything else in between. And I know, I know exactly what your calendar looks like. And that that brings me to a story. I'm going to use that as a transition. So our producer Kevin kindly reminded us that we left a cliffhanger on last episode, our holiday episode, 2025. Would we wear those ridiculous Christmas pajamas all day? But you're really ridiculous. I excuse me, those awesome. Yeah, charming, beautifully designed. And actually, this was an audience question too. Someone asked someone asked me this as well. If we So what happened? Yeah. What happened then? I'm going to tell the story, okay? So uh hell no, I put my clothes back on. But Chris, Chris's calendar, for people who don't know him, it is a brick wall. Every second of every minute of his day is booked or double booked. And uh we finished recording and he was like, he looked at his watch, he was like, ah, I have to jump in a because he he was like, should we change, shouldn't we? And he had to jump straight in a call. And then the next thing happened, and the next thing, and the next thing, and I saw him hours later um still wearing those pajamas.

SPEAKER_01:

And I was I was rocking these pajamas with I was proud now. I was really, really proud of me. And uh I even had a client call. But but the disaster. The good thing they didn't see my awesome Christmas socks and just the yeah, the upper part of my body. And I I could could could explain to the client why why it was uh adjusted a little bit different this time. It was a great, great episode.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, it would hurt to lose a customer that late in the year you know.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I I think quite the opposite happened. We yeah, yeah. I think he's more in into us now than than ever. So I think it's a great retention strategy. All right. More Bobby Channel's for Smacky's.

SPEAKER_02:

All right, but um we've got uh another busy day ahead of us as always. And uh so let's get right into it. Um the month of January. Did anything noteworthy happen in the month of January?

SPEAKER_01:

The question is a funny one. Anything, yeah. Um I would say at least one very um astounding thing happened, right? I mean, uh quite substantial uh thing. Uh three letters, UCP.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Another acronym we get to care about. What what is that what what is UCP about, Matt? Um well it stands for Universal Context, or excuse me, Commerce Protocol. I'm getting it's uh there's this there's now all these uh acronyms with these. There's ACP from OpenAI, and that's Agentic Commerce Protocol. Um and then there's these are kind of inspired from uh MCP from Anthropic and that's Model Context Protocol. Um and yeah, it sounds very positive.

SPEAKER_01:

Well is it positive?

SPEAKER_02:

I mean the technology, listen, Chris, it's like any other thing. The technology is neutral, it all depends on how it gets used.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Um but let's let's jump into it because uh for sure it's it's quite a substantial thing. And I think it it's it's perfectly connected to what we have been preaching let's say about um throughout 2026 that Google is going is is very smart in embedding their their AI capabilities into their core product, which is Google Search. Yeah. That we think the future of search will look significantly different to what what we have now. And uh Athentec Commerce will be in the center of it. And the idea of this zero-click buy environment uh is something we uh we both had talks about it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think UCP is nailing in the conference. So any anyone who is doubting that quite obvious hypothesis uh as of today, yeah, is I think on the wrong side of history. Because I think UCP is that major move Google Google made, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean, absolutely like there's there are layers here. I mean, because uh you know, this agenda commerce thing is even much bigger than a single channel like search, but it will absolutely change the way that people are um are buying through search and interacting with search, and it's poised to change e-commerce. And so UCP is this kind of infrastructure layer under all that. You know, there's this infrastructure layer of the models, the AI, which power these agents. Um, and then if you actually want these agents to do something productive together, uh UCP and in a commerce context, UCP is supposed to be the standard for that. So what this does is it basically the goal is to like modularize commerce, which is basically a fancy way of saying figure out what are the main Lego bricks inside of commerce, things like checkout, product discovery, um, you know, payments and stuff like that. Yeah. Exactly. So these key capabilities um are defined. And then there's also other themes like discounting and everything else that can be out there. These are all called extensions. So it has to do with capabilities and extensions. And what happens is that uh different platforms will have different capabilities. Uh you know, if you're a PayPal, then of course payment is one of your capabilities. Um that'll be a shared capability. Uh but there's other things. PayPal doesn't care about product discovery, for example. Um so when there are agents on on behalf of the these platforms and the website, the merchants and so on, uh, they basically go through the this process called negotiation where they agree like, okay, these are the capabilities that we have in common and this is a then a structured way in which we can interact. So it's just kind of guardrails, basically.

SPEAKER_01:

Um I mean, taking taking this this this this move now into account uh and and maybe zoom out a bit from a strategic perspective. What's what's the aim here? I mean, for Google? Just to be kind of as precise as possible, because at the end of the day, we don't know in detail, but yeah. Let's fast forward, I don't know, let's say two years, Mark. What what changes to the commerce environment uh will will we be facing in two years?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, let's yeah, that's a great question. I mean, let's let's start with why why Google is is doing this. Um they're not new to buying infrastructure, building infrastructure. Um, you know, uh there's been there have been these infrastructure races in the past. You can look at AI models as an infrastructure race. At first, people thought it would be um, you know, that there would be these motes around them and stuff, and it it would be if i open AI thought that they had this huge head start and it would take forever to people to catch up, but that was a wrong assumption. And now it it's it's not entirely commoditized, but um these other platforms have all caught up and Google has even surpassed them. Um so this means that the models are just a layer of infrastructure and it's valuable to have ownership of infrastructure, just like it's valuable to own railroad lines or stuff like that. So this is why Google they do things like build undersea internet cables. Um does so so do a lot of these companies. They do all kinds of stuff. They've uh built cloud computing infrastructure, and this is a new infrastructure layer, and it's very important because um this is also a standards war, a war for to set the standard. Um it would be really kind of awkward for Google to uh be telling their merchants to integrate with OpenAI's ACP, this competing standard. Um and the question is can we can just will there be one standard? I mean it's a bit it goes in the sense of having standards if there isn't if there are multiples. Um but we can think like back to the early days of electricity, the standards were between Tesla and Edison in it. It's a bit reminiscent of that. Um so they they want to own this standard, they want to own this infrastructure layer, um, at least from a, you know, it's open source, uh, but from a they've got their flag planted there. Um it just it just brings everything, it it brings the center of gravity closer to them and the rest of their stack. And it's even just partly an ego thing. Um, and assuming zooming in on Google.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Again, uh I don't want to let you off the hook here. Two years, two years from now. What let's say one year from now. Um I'm I'm really asking uh this question with all seriousness because I think this the big change is about to happen. And the cool thing is to all listeners who are not even that deeply connected to the commerce world, at the end of the day, it will impact the you know, everyone buying online. This is the cool thing about this UCP thing because finally some changes in Google happen, which literally means something. Also to my friends who are not anywhere close to, you know, um whether it's standard shopping or standard search, they don't they don't they don't care, right? Or it's PMEX. But this is this is a big change. And and maybe again, in one to two years, what what what will be different?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, well this this now depends on the product strategy of the of the different platforms and retailers and whoever who will build on this. Because like anyone can right now go and start um building on UCP, or maybe there's some wait list stuff you have to do. But um so like here in Europe, for example, um Zelando is already building with UCP. In the US, um, Walmart is building the UCP. Um and Google is of course building their own offer on UCP and their own products. So they're integrating this with AI mode, and then they're integrating this with Google Merchant Center and with Google Ads. So this will be their ecosystem. They're tying it all together. Um and in like a year from now, it's hard to say because um I I have to remember when they said in 2000, I think they announced at Google Marketing Live 2023 that that there would be like is that when it yeah, there was like SGE at the time, which became AI overviews, and they were already talking about ads in SGE or AI overviews. Um and it took them now we have 2026. Yes. It's taken them years, and these things are still just rolling out. So um while there's a lot of hype, this stuff just doesn't move as fast as you think it will. Um in the grand scheme of things, it's a big shift. But in a year from now, I think that uh there will be, you know, there will be ad integrations and full merchant integrations with UCP that have left beta in at least the US. And other markets will be in beta or stuff like that. Um so that's probably like but what that means is what what we don't know is what will happen to consumer uptake. Exactly. And because once it once Google is building this stuff and lay ready to scale, then it depends how exactly how fast do people use this.

SPEAKER_01:

Because this this is also my take on it. Uh and like like I said, I I see it rather not not that much because you read the fucking protocol. I would never do this. But uh from a strategic perspective, I I think uh on on this technical layer, it sounds like uh they did a good job here. I think they collaborated with the with the right companies. Yeah, um, they had great partners here. So I think maybe they will be ready to scale rather sooner than later. The big question is what will people do? Pardon my French fucking adoption rate. How are our end consumers really willing to say, hey, I want an ADD sneaker size 38, black and red, and and let the buying process be handled by an agent? Yeah and here I'm I'm rather conservative, honestly speaking, because whoever I talk to the last couple of weeks and months, um, I think it it's it won't happen overnight, that's for sure. That's for sure. And I think this is the big big risk to to this to this whole thing. Is is it really driving value for the client and will the adoption rate uh be there? Yeah. And Google has miscalculated uh their adoption rates before, right? I mean PMEX.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

They forced adoption because PMEX was not organically growing as fast as they wanted to. So for me, this is the big question. Yes. My hypothesis, Mark, give give me, give me, give me a give me your take on this. Uh let's say US e-commerce revenue, let's focus on US because their adoption rate probably will be faster than anywhere else. Um in two years, will it be rather 50% of e-commerce revenue going through uh going going through this this new um way of shopping, or will will it be rather 10%?

SPEAKER_02:

It'll be rather five percent.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. That's a statement. I loved it. All right.

SPEAKER_02:

But but it the the thing is that that this can this can change quickly and there will be tipping points. But I think this is a how much what do you say in one year or in two years? Oh, in two years. 10%? 10%. But it's not 50%. No. That's what I'm saying. It won't be 50% in two years. I don't I don't I don't care what anyone says. It won't be 50% in two years.

SPEAKER_01:

Because I think it's it's so important. Uh I I think an important message to all the listeners, I guess clients are listening to, because there is this this massive hype going on now. And I talk to clients almost every day, and it of course this lands on the desk of the CMO and of e-commerce. Chris, what should we do? How fast is what what's going on here? Yeah. And I think um there's time, you have to have a strategy, but I think it's very important. It's not happening overnight.

SPEAKER_02:

No, and the uh the thing, it's a very, it's a very tricky balance to draw because um, you know, we see this time and again. Like it was not that long ago that pardon my French this time, CMOs were shitting their pants over NFTs. Oh, and that's so embarrassing now, or shitting their pants over the metaverse. That's it, it's so important.

SPEAKER_01:

It's embarrassing. It's so embarrassing. I think UCP is a different game.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, and and that's like this what I think is different this time. This technology is real, it is credible. Google has done a much better job than OpenAI. This standard looks great. Their partnerships are immaculate. Yes. Um PayPal, you couldn't do better. Walmart. Walmart this sends a huge message to Amazon.

SPEAKER_01:

Um I mean, we talked about that, I think, uh, in 2025. Uh, that Amazon, uh sorry, uh Walmart as a marketplace, basically. Because let's face it, who who who is it who faces the biggest risk uh looking at UCP? Is it the small retailer? Is it the the the big online retailer? Is it rather the marketplace? From your perspective, where where's the biggest risk we located?

SPEAKER_02:

Um I think that it gets painful in the in the middle. Um I think I think if I think that small brands, niche products, um, this kind of stuff. We still we have to see how will this look demographically and per category, the adoption of this kind of technology. But um I I think that these these differentiated products um can can do well here.

SPEAKER_01:

They just need to make sure that the AI is able to discover that that's the point. And I think that leads us to another topic, but before we jump on uh on onto the question, and then what the online retailer can do about that now? I have another hypothesis that would like to double check with you. Um we briefly chatted about it a couple of weeks ago, but this UCP thing. Um is it is it making the life easier for the middle of the pack online retailer who is who is fighting now against the big wills in the classic e-commerce environment? Is it is it not changing a bit, or is it making it even more challenging for for this this SMB online retailer, right? Yeah, against the Wills, yeah, Amazon, Walmart, and co.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean, I think if you're really um a pure online multi-brand retailer of a medium size, this is quite challenging because um, you know, your your own brand is maybe not that well known and it's not going to be that relevant to the AI. Um like what are your value propositions on speed, availability, cost, and stuff like this? Uh these types of advantages tend to get concentrated uh in larger players. Um and so I think that they they benefit because in the end, um, you know, you can't even really there will be ads here, but if we're talking about what happens organically from the from the AI, um if it really fulfills its mission, it's going to be doing a lot of price comparison, a lot of comparison of convenience and stuff like that. Yeah, absolutely. And this will just be ruthless. This will be and then and and you know, you're not even getting that traffic on your site. That's also painful to the big players because they've been I've been a huge bear on retail media networks um for as long as this podcast has been around, basically. Uh so this is not new, but um that thesis gets a lot stronger now because pain. Yeah, exactly. They they I mean, and I was a bear for other reasons, but it really accelerates now. Because uh if they're not getting the traffic on their site, yeah, they're not getting the data that builds the first party audience mode. There's not it all just the whole thing falls apart, of course.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. Everything is is connected more than ever. I mean, uh okay, uh by the way, I I co-sign this up with these. I just read an article the other day where where they they tried to make the argument that the leverages you have, especially to be visible organically, are now it's it's more a level playing field. Um and I think let's jump right into this topic. Sure. Because what's interesting now is Google, from my our perspective, I think, did another smart thing. They are now moving the responsibility that let's say uh AI overview or AI mode is is really able to read your website, your product catalog the best way possible. Yeah. They're moving the responsibility even more to the online retailer by launching 10 to 12 new uh data feed uh yeah, it's starting out with that many, and it they even in the article, the press release about this, they said dozens.

SPEAKER_02:

Dozens.

SPEAKER_01:

Plural. Which is crazy. So that what what that means that the AI is right now not as capable as it should be, and that it needs more information, more structured information. Is that the underlying message?

SPEAKER_02:

I think there's a couple things here. Yeah, so they're looking for conversational attributes, and these are just really detailed pieces of information about your product and stuff like that. And even things like question and answers, they want this and they're provided in your data feed, like in Merchant Center. This will then be relevant for your ads, but also your product discovery, like that product discovery capability by UCP. Um, in AI mode, that's gonna work largely based um on your feed and not just your website. So the thing is that in principle, Google could crawl your landing page and and learn an awful lot about your product. Um and I think that was for a while, it looked like that's a direction they've been crawling landing pages for years with dynamic search ads and all kinds of stuff. Um that's not a new capability. And with this new technology, it seemed like, okay, here we go. Will feeds even be necessary in the future? Um but it's this is almost a silent admission. Uh like either they they can't or they don't want to, or a little bit of both.

SPEAKER_01:

But the results aren't good enough?

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly. I think that the risk of hallucination is too high.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

I think they really, for the consumer experience, they they're putting a high degree of emphasis on confidence and correct information so that they have the trust, uh, because that will be a major factor in adoption. Sure. If it's hallucinating, people are not going to use that stuff. And there might even be legal claims.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, legal claims. And I I don't I don't I don't think because there's there's this, I think, natural doubt in in in in in our minds that uh shopping is actually a cool thing. Why should I should I end this or what an assistant? Yeah. And if the assistant is not doing a great job, I I don't even know that the assistant gets a second chance. So if if the the re the quality is not there, I also think it's kind of a safety net for Google. Yeah. Which I think fair play. My my take on this would be I I think although it's kind of outsourcing a huge load of responsibility to online retailer, I think it's a great chance for online retailers to have to to impact right the visibility and especially organically by having the right data feed strategy, let's call it like this. I I think it's not even a bad thing. Although it will require work, a lot of know-how.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh a lot of testing because no one knows uh how this all all all I mean we will be sent certainly uh uh very much focusing on this as a company. But from my perspective, this might be even a good thing from that from that perspective.

SPEAKER_02:

I I think it's it's totally a good thing because if the AI were handling this, it would be another thing that's just Completely commoditized, democratized. Yes, you could have better landing pages that would support that process better. But this really, excuse me, this really puts it in your control. It doesn't mean that's going to be easy to do, but we're just saying that these retailers in the middle could get squeezed. There's all of this emphasis on availability, price, et cetera. But there's this whole other dimension about finding the right product to meet very specific criteria. How do we do that? So, you know, you if you can, there are people who are going to do a great job of this, people who are going to do a bad job of this, people who aren't going to do it at all. And it's there's for certainly, at least in the near to medium term, a huge advantage to be found in doing a great job of this.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And I think the big balance, uh, just the other day I had a conversation with uh with uh basically the owner of a quite quite successful online shop in Germany. The question is, of course, probably you have to do some restructuring your company, maybe you even have to create new roles, new teams um to conquer that new challenges uh with regards to uh Atlantic surfaces or and and new data feed strategies. But the major question he asked me was how big will it be for us, right, the next two to three years? Because there's a massive trade-off. Yeah, yeah. We have limited resources. How much energy should I put on this now? And this leads me back to the question I asked you at the beginning. Will it be rather 5% or 50%? And I think this is the insecurity a lot of on online retailers have now. It's a massive hype. Yes, yes. But how much will materialize in my bottom and top line if I put loads of resources on let's say yeah, crafting a completely new data feed strategy for my company.

SPEAKER_02:

And and yeah, I mean the honest answer is I I don't know. We don't know. For sure.

SPEAKER_01:

But I I think I just based on- I'd love to hear that from you because you know so much things, man. Like you don't know this? I I love it. We don't know, fair enough.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh but if I if I if I look at what has happened so far, I mean, um, you know, 2023, people were like, maybe AGI this year, 2024, maybe AGI this year, 2025, maybe AGI this year. And, you know, meanwhile, the company who is most capable and best suited to put ads in AI services, um, it took them a long time to do that. Absolutely. Then then, you know, people are talking about I don't want to miss the boat on open AI ads.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Brother, you're not gonna you can you can swim to that boat. That boat my beer. That boat is not going anywhere anytime soon. That is a slow boat. Okay. It's because it's not, it's not like it that's just the way it is. It takes time to build an ad network. And it takes time to overhaul an ad network or any kind like to overhaul e-commerce can't happen that fast. But at the same time, you you have to pay attention to you can't miss out on that one. And there will be advantages to the first movers.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And I think this this is the the challenge now, and I think that the good companies will find this balance. And I also see chances there, honestly speaking, yeah, for for for the SB online retailer, because um maybe they are a bit more flexible, maybe, maybe they are they are more flexible in balancing their resources, they're quicker to adapt. Um, maybe maybe this is a chance there. And I'm I'm with you. I think uh jumping all in on this is certainly not not the greatest idea unless you have unlimited resources. But the trade-off you face is not worthy, probably, because we're talking about five to ten percent. Yeah. Maybe in the US, Europe will be maybe even one one to two years lagging. Yes. Yeah, we we don't know.

SPEAKER_02:

Anywhere from six months to eighteen months, I would say.

SPEAKER_01:

So uh I think this is this is the right message. Uh have the right partners, I think. Uh outsource where you can and and try to be connected to this topic, but don't go all in. I think it would be it would be stupid.

SPEAKER_02:

No, yeah. You can't you can't overreact, you can't underreact, but you have to react.

SPEAKER_01:

You have to react. But this is a tricky situation. Yeah. Uh fully understand. Fully understand. Uh man, another another hypothesis. Yes. I brought one more with me. All right, okay, okay. Maybe it's an easy one, but I think it's also interesting for our retailers. There's also a question from from from a client, uh, and a fair question. Um, we have ACP from basically ChatGPT, right? And we have UCP and MCP, I think, from Anthropic. Yeah, that's a general purpose. But the general purpose. Yeah. Let's say this will be the war of protocols. We had this in Tesla, we had it with uh Blu-ray and what was the other thing. And DVD or HD HD DVD? Yeah, yeah. No, I I remember. And and you you see you see right there that this this war for protocols is a big one. And you should be betting on the right protocol, or maybe you can get um but what what's your take? Uh is is is it that right rather winner takes it all? Again, a rather question. Uh winner takes it all. Will it be ACP or UCP? Is it that is is there a chance that they're they're just both and having a a fair stake in market share? What what's your take on it?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean the even Amazon's also rolling out running the game. Yeah, they're rolling out a protocol too. Although I don't I have to read more about it. It's a time of recording, it's quite new. Um But I I think that none of these companies are gonna let this go. Absolutely not. So no one's going to concede um the victory to another party. Um, but Google will win. And that Google will win. So you can bet on Google pretty easily right now. And um you Yes. And you know, and it's and it's by the way, it's not just like Google is kind of yeah, they're at the front of this. You can even, if you're in the docs, you notice that it's in this Googly font and stuff. There's these little clues in there. But it's not only Google, it's there are all their partners as well. It is open source. Um and but they're they're just they're just going to win this. And the it doesn't mean that the other ones won't go away, uh, but it's the same now as we see dominant ad networks and then these more secondary and tertiary ad networks. Um it's amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh we we can maybe we have a living experience in front of our eyes. The classic page search market share. Microsoft's there and it won't go away. Yeah. But Google is winning the game with, I don't know, 90, 85% market share. Maybe it maybe it plays out that way.

SPEAKER_02:

And Google, by the way, they've like in general, they've also done, they've been very smart. Like if we look at these other infrastructure layers, like like uh the models, for example. If you're in Google Cloud, they want you to use Vertex. That's their AI that's in inside cloud. And they've built lots of cool things that work kind of exclusively with vertex. But they also support every other LLM that there is. They call it uh the model garden. And even you know, UCP is compatible with MCP because it wouldn't be smart enough to do that.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I mean, but by the way, I I cross on that. Uh I think there were earnings calls uh a couple of days ago. Look at the numbers. Uh I think Google has the perfect flywheel. Yeah. Uh no financial advice again, but no, it it they they have, and and um they are smart in embedding this, and I think they have uh by far the best starting position, like you said. But even Google take it takes time. Even even Google uh need needs time. So I think yeah, uh the good message to uh to to to our clients and and all the online retailers there is time. Don't go erect.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01:

But a substantial, substantial announcement, yeah. It's big. What else happened in January? But we're out of time, man. Maybe we should we should cover that in another episode.

SPEAKER_02:

I think that was it anyway, Chris. This is what it is for sure.

SPEAKER_01:

For sure. It was a quiet January. Yeah. Yeah. It was a pleasure.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, good to be back uh in front of the microphone. Good to see you again, Chris. Have hardly seen you this new year so far, actually. Or a month. By the way, that's true.

SPEAKER_01:

That's true. We'll we'll get better now. Yeah, definitely. Again, nothing changed. You're my favorite American, and uh I'll love to be around.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm so relieved to hear that, Chris. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

This this it has to be a great day now for you, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean, I feel UCP steck stepping on my neck, but then at least you're still my number one. All right, well right, Mike. Thanks a lot, sir. Yep. Thanks everyone for listening. So this has been another episode of Growing E-Commerce brought to you by Smarter E-Commerce. To learn more, you can visit Smarter ecommerce.com. And as always, we really appreciate it if you give us a shout out online. Actually, there were a couple of cool mentions after some last episodes recently, and so we really appreciate that. Helps a lot. And thanks. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01:

See you guys. Bye bye.