AI for merchants, marketplaces and marketing
AI for merchants, marketplaces and marketing
Platform Updates
Between October 5 and October 21, 2026, TikTok, Meta, Shopify, Google and Walmart opened or announced checkouts for agentic commerce, shopping with or by AI agents. Etsy tightened its rules on AI use in listings on October 22.
Chandni Melwani
Global · Nov 3, 2026
Platform Updates
Etsy's October 22, 2026 rules bar AI-generated functional guides, like patterns, recipes and instructions, and bot-generated listings without any human involvement. For most products, listings now need at least one unedited photo of the actual item against a real background.
Chandni Melwani · Global · Oct 29, 2026
Platform Updates
Google's Universal Cart is rolling out in the US in Search and the Gemini app. For stores, the first release of its Cart API only creates and transfers a cart; Google doesn't support updating or syncing it. Merchant Center onboarding needs an interest form and Google's selection.
Chandni Melwani · Oct 21, 2026
Platform Updates
From October 30, 2026, Meta's Commercial Terms authorize it to crawl pages associated with the products or services of businesses using Meta commercially. Meta cut “train” from the US text on October 16; legal experts told Nieman Lab the wording is still broad.
Chandni Melwani · Oct 20, 2026
Platform Updates
Shopify's Shop MCP lets any AI agent search its catalogue and pay with a signed-in shopper's Shop Pay. Shop's help page holds shoppers responsible for agent purchases within the permissions and budgets they set, even unexpected ones.
Chandni Melwani · Oct 18, 2026
Platform Updates
Meta named Shopify, Stripe, PayPal and Adyen for checkout inside its AI chats. In September, Amazon blocked Meta’s Muse agent from shopping on Amazon.com, Adweek reported.
Chandni Melwani · Oct 8, 2026
Platform Updates
The get_cart and update_cart tools on Shopify's Storefront MCP server reached their August 31 deprecation date. Agents that have not moved to the UCP Cart MCP will try to add items to a cart that no longer answers.
Chandni Melwani · Aug 31, 2026
Platform Updates
The Additional Scripts field on the Thank you and Order status pages stopped executing for stores on non-Plus plans on August 26. Orders keep flowing, so nothing looks wrong.
Chandni Melwani · Global · Aug 28, 2026
Platform Updates
Four to five cents a message, not a conversation. And on October 1 your human agents' replies start costing money too.
Chandni Melwani · Global · Aug 5, 2026
Platform Updates
Put a product in a campaign and every order it gets counts as the campaign's. TikTok says that's the design, and there's one way to check it.
Chandni Melwani · Global · Jul 29, 2026
Platform Updates
A New York disclosure law took effect in June. Amazon just turned it into a platform rule, with a specific metadata keyword, worldwide.
Chandni Melwani · North America · Jul 24, 2026
Platform Updates
A shorter title cap and a new AI-only field, arriving on a two-week clock.
Chandni Melwani · Jul 17, 2026
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