What is Yandex Commerce Protocol (YCP) and how to sell through Alice

Yandex Commerce Protocol (YCP) is Russia's first standard by which an online store connects to AI and starts selling directly in a chat with Alice and in Yandex Search. If agentic commerce used to be "the future," since February 2026 it has a protocol, ready-made ways to connect, and a live sales channel.

For a seller this is a new storefront: not a marketplace shelf or a listing, but a line in the answer of an assistant that picks the product itself and walks the buyer to the order. About 19 million people use Alice AI in chat every week — and some of them ask not "show me" but "buy."

How it works

YCP is a way to hand Yandex the structure of your catalog (products, prices, stock, attributes) so Alice can offer and sell your product. It was announced on February 27, 2026; at launch about 3,500 stores could already sell through Alice and Search. Four ways to connect:

• Automatically — if the store runs on Yandex KIT.
• With a ready-made module — for 1C-Bitrix.
• Through the Yandex Tovary account — with fulfillment via Market.
• Via API — for your own CMS or a custom solution.

From there the logic is the same as in agentic commerce: the algorithm makes the decision, and it isn't the listing design that wins — it's the completeness and honesty of the data.

Example for a seller

A buyer writes to Alice: "put together a dacha kit under 10,000 ₽." The assistant selects products by attributes and places the order. If your catalog is served over YCP and the data is complete, you're in that answer and in the zero-click purchase. If the store isn't connected, Alice doesn't know about the product and will offer a competitor.

Is it worth connecting now

YCP covers what external AIs can't give: ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini work in Russia only over VPN and barely see your internals (more on that in the What is GEO breakdown). Alice is a domestic channel that is already live. Yandex forecasts global agentic sales to reach $3–5 trillion by 2030; in Russia this layer is only forming — early connections are cheaper and more visible.

Mini-FAQ

How is YCP different from connecting to Market? Market is a platform with search results and listings. YCP is a standard by which the product is sold in Alice's answer, where the buyer may never open the listing at all.

What's required from the seller? Hand over the catalog one of the four ways and keep the data complete — the same lever as in agentic commerce.

Is it only for big players? No. Auto-connection on Yandex KIT and the 1C-Bitrix module cover small stores too.

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This term is part of a larger guide: The seller's AI glossary for 2026: 25 terms.

Neighboring terms: What is agentic commerce · What is a zero-click purchase · What is GEO · What is AEO · What is AI Share of Voice