Agent Communication Protocol vs Agentic Commerce Protocol
Both belong to the Protocols called ACP group on this map. They share the acronym ACP but sit at different steps and are unrelated. They answer different questions: Agent Communication Protocol is a step 6 (Coordinate) standard, Agentic Commerce Protocol step 7 (Pay), so they are not substitutes.
| Agent Communication Protocol ACP | Agentic Commerce Protocol ACP | |
|---|---|---|
| Lifecycle step | 6 Coordinate: Talk to another agent | 7 Pay: Settle the bill |
| Answers | How did agents, applications, and people exchange multimodal REST messages before merging into A2A? | How do a buyer's agent and a merchant complete a deterministic, programmatic checkout without the agent becoming the merchant of record? |
| Governed by | Formerly IBM BeeAI; archived, functionality merged into A2A under the Linux Foundation | Technical Steering Committee (up to 7 org seats); OpenAI, Stripe, and Meta are lead maintainers, with OpenAI and Stripe as Founding Maintainers holding last-resort veto over mission, neutrality, security, and fork-integrity decisions |
| Status (issuer's words) | "ACP is now part of A2A under the Linux Foundation" (repository banner) | Beta open standard, interaction model for connecting buyers, agents, and businesses |
| Phase | deprecated | living |
| Version | v1.0.3 (2025-08-21) | 2026-04-17 (date-versioned spec; unreleased/ tracks current development) (2026-04-17) |
| Form / transport | endpoint | endpoint |
| Found at | /agents | Bilateral capability negotiation (per RFC: capability_negotiation) between agent platform and merchant; no fixed well-known path published |
| Adoption | unmeasured | claimed — OpenAI and Stripe (project README) |
| Evidence | 4 verified, 1 reported | 3 verified, 2 reported |
| Primary use case | Let agents talk to other agents | Let agents buy on behalf of a person |
| Last verified | 2026-10-19 (current) | 2026-10-19 (current) |
| Specification | https://github.com/i-am-bee/acp | https://github.com/agentic-commerce-protocol/agentic-commerce-protocol |
When to use which
- Choose Agent Communication Protocol when your question is “How did agents, applications, and people exchange multimodal REST messages before merging into A2A?” and you accept its maturity: phase deprecated, adoption unmeasured. It is no longer maintained; prefer its successor.
- Choose Agentic Commerce Protocol when your question is “How do a buyer's agent and a merchant complete a deterministic, programmatic checkout without the agent becoming the merchant of record?” and you accept its maturity: phase living, adoption claimed (OpenAI and Stripe (project README)).
Read the full articles
- Agent Communication Protocol: How did agents, applications, and people exchange multimodal REST messages before merging into A2A?
- Agentic Commerce Protocol: How do a buyer's agent and a merchant complete a deterministic, programmatic checkout without the agent becoming the merchant of record?
agent-communication-protocol.json · agentic-commerce-protocol.json · Markdown