**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](/resources/chto-takoe-agentnaya-torgovlya): 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](/resources/chto-takoe-zero-click-pokupka). 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](/resources/chto-takoe-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](/resources/chto-takoe-agentnaya-torgovlya).

**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](/resources/ai-slovar-sellera-2026-25-terminov).

Neighboring terms: [What is agentic commerce](/resources/chto-takoe-agentnaya-torgovlya) · [What is a zero-click purchase](/resources/chto-takoe-zero-click-pokupka) · [What is GEO](/resources/chto-takoe-geo) · [What is AEO](/resources/chto-takoe-aeo) · [What is AI Share of Voice](/resources/chto-takoe-ai-share-of-voice)