UCP & ACP

Beyond Single Items: How UCP Multi-Item Carts Enable “Bundled Intent”

UCPFix Team
Apr 15, 2025
4 min read

What is Bundled Intent?

“Bundled Intent” occurs when a consumer provides a high-level prompt such as, “Get me everything I need for a backyard taco night for six people.” Instead of the human navigating five different product pages, the agent uses UCP to identify and aggregate multiple items—from fresh ingredients to patio lighting—into a unified checkout session.

The Technical Pillars of Multi-Item UCP

To participate in these high-value “bundled” sales, merchants must understand the core UCP primitives that govern multi-item interactions:

  • Unified Checkout Sessions: UCP collapses the complexity of multi-item logic. Agents can negotiate directly with a seller’s Checkout API to handle complex cart logic, dynamic pricing, and real-time tax calculations for an entire list of SKUs simultaneously.
  • Fulfillment & Split-Shipment Logic: Agents use the UCP Fulfillment Extension to negotiate shipping methods for various items in a bundle. If some items are available for local pickup while others require shipping, the protocol allows the agent to surface these trade-offs to the user in a single summary.
  • Idempotency & Atomic Reservations: To prevent “partial bundle” failures (where an agent buys the salsa but the chips sell out), UCP supports atomic stock reservations. This ensures that the entire “intent” is fulfilled or none of it is, protecting the consumer from incomplete orders.

Strategy: Becoming a “Bundle-Ready” Merchant

Merchants don’t need to create their own pre-made bundles anymore. Instead, they need to ensure their data is “bundle-friendly” for autonomous agents.

This means providing contextual metadata in your Merchant Center feed—going beyond keywords to include “Compatible Accessories” or “Required Substitutes”. When your products are clearly mapped as part of a larger ecosystem, AI agents are significantly more likely to include your SKUs in a multi-item “Agentic Handshake.”

Key Takeaway: In the agentic era, sales are increasingly “orchestrated” rather than “found.” By adopting UCP multi-item primitives, you move from selling individual products to becoming an essential part of a consumer’s complex, automated goals.