Intergraf has endorsed development of an interface between Google Universal Commerce Protocol and the printing industry. This will enable friction-free completely automated agentic AI purchasing of printed matter. It is considered to be the next step in online commerce at least by the Initiative Online Print, representing online printers, which has declared its support for the potential standard.
Other approaches have been announced, but the Google led UCP has been endorsed by key retailers and payment system companies in the US which will give it momentum.
The UCP was only announced at the start of this year and is intended as an open source standard. Without the UCP, AI agents would need bespoke interfaces between the retailer, the AI and the service provider, including printers. However, the UCP is not yet set in stone so is more easily adapted to the needs of the industry and will put print ahead of other sectors in this way. It has already been upgraded so that the agent can buy a basket or items rather than a single item at a time.
Print requires a more complex purchasing process than selecting a new microwave for example. The UCP will need to allow preflight checks and approvals as well as personalisation.
The move by the IOP has been supported by the BvDM, the German equivalent of the BPIF, as well as by Intergraf. A working group is already in place to work out how to match the workflows in the printing industry with the Google protocol. This will describe what printers need to do to make their processes available to the AI agent. This will include a full product breakdown and description, built on work from CIP4 in developing JDF, access to production planning as well as supporting proofing and approval steps.
Variable data printing and access to sustainability measurements will also be needed as will profiles for the purchasing organisation in order to unlock customer specific discounts and so on.
By Q3 this year, a draft of the print specification should be ready and will be submitted to Google before the end of the year. Pilot testing will take place in the first part of 2027 ahead of a wider industry roll out.
The speed will put print in the forefront of online commerce. No other industry has announced plans to a vertical implementation of UCP which gives print the opportunity to lead the way that implementations will work.
Chairman of the Initiative Online Print Bernd Zipper says: “Whoever defines the standard defines the rules of the game. The printing industry can either actively shape the future of agentic commerce for print – or allow others to shape it instead.”
