Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP)

OpenAI and Stripe's protocol for AI-native commerce.

What is ACP?

ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol) is a joint initiative from OpenAI and Stripe announced in 2025 to enable AI agents to complete purchases. It focuses on the checkout flow—how agents acquire payment credentials and execute transactions.

ACP vs Hospitality

ACP was designed for retail commerce: immediate payment, immediate fulfillment. Hospitality differs:

ACP provides the payment rails. Folio adds hospitality payment semantics.

Extending ACP for Hospitality

Payment Schedule Extension

ACP's checkout assumes single payment. We extend with a payment schedule:

{
  "acp_checkout": {
    "session_id": "cs_abc123",
    "total": { "amount": 29000, "currency": "GBP" }
  },
  "hospitality_extension": {
    "payment_schedule": [
      {
        "type": "deposit",
        "amount": { "amount": 5000, "currency": "GBP" },
        "due": "on_booking"
      },
      {
        "type": "balance",
        "amount": { "amount": 24000, "currency": "GBP" },
        "due": "14_days_before"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Cancellation Policy Extension

ACP doesn't model cancellation. We add tiered refund policies:

{
  "hospitality_extension": {
    "cancellation_policy": {
      "tiers": [
        { "days_before": 14, "refund_percent": 100 },
        { "days_before": 7, "refund_percent": 50 },
        { "days_before": 0, "refund_percent": 0 }
      ]
    }
  }
}

SPT for Hospitality

ACP's SharedPaymentToken (SPT) allows agents to store and reuse payment credentials. For hospitality, we extend SPT to support:

Deferred Charges

{
  "spt": {
    "token_id": "spt_xyz789",
    "payment_method": "pm_abc123"
  },
  "authorized_charges": [
    {
      "type": "deposit",
      "max_amount": { "amount": 5000, "currency": "GBP" },
      "execute_at": "on_creation"
    },
    {
      "type": "balance",
      "max_amount": { "amount": 24000, "currency": "GBP" },
      "valid_from": "2026-03-01"
    }
  ]
}

No-Show Authorization

{
  "authorized_charges": [
    {
      "type": "no_show",
      "max_amount": { "amount": 29000, "currency": "GBP" },
      "valid_from": "2026-03-16",
      "requires_proof": true
    }
  ]
}

Implementation Pattern

1. Agent creates booking → Venue returns ACP checkout session

2. User completes checkout → SPT stored with hospitality extensions

3. Deposit captured immediately via SPT

4. Balance captured on due date via scheduled charge

5. If cancelled → Refund calculated per policy, executed via SPT

6. If no-show → Charge executed with proof attestation

Relationship to AP2

ACP and AP2 solve similar problems differently:

Both need hospitality extensions. Folio provides the vocabulary; either protocol can execute it.

Resources

• Stripe Agentic Toolkit
• OpenAI Commerce Plugins