Your website is "ready for AI shopping" if it publishes a small file called a UCP manifest that lists what you sell, how customers pay, and proof your business is real, all in a format an AI program can read directly rather than guess at.
Why "ready" is actually a specific, checkable thing
"Is my site ready for AI?" sounds vague, like asking if your site "looks good." It isn't vague, though. An AI shopping assistant either can or cannot find a structured answer to a small set of specific questions about your store. If it can, you are ready. If it can't, you aren't, no matter how good your website otherwise looks to a human visitor. The rest of this page is just that list of questions, one item at a time.
The checklist
Do you have a manifest published at all?
This is the file that makes everything else on this list possible. Without it, an AI assistant has nothing structured to read about your store, no matter what else is true.
RequiredDoes it list your actual products or services?
The manifest needs to name what you sell so an AI assistant can match you to what a shopper is actually looking for.
RequiredCan a shopper actually pay you?
Your manifest needs to say which payment methods you accept, cards, a processor like Stripe or PayPal, and so on, or an AI assistant cannot complete a purchase even if it knows what you sell.
RequiredIs there a security signature confirming you're a real business?
This is a technical safeguard that helps AI systems trust your manifest is genuinely from you, roughly playing the same role the padlock icon plays for a browser.
RequiredIs your store on a secure connection (HTTPS)?
Almost every store already has this by default today. It's worth a quick check anyway, since AI systems, like browsers, generally will not trust a site that isn't secure.
Good practiceHave you actually tested it?
A manifest can exist and still have a typo or a missing field that quietly breaks it. Running your domain through a checker takes a few seconds and tells you if anything needs fixing.
Good practiceThe first four items are the ones that matter most. Without them, there usually isn't much an AI assistant can actually do with your store. The last two are good hygiene that most stores already have covered, but they're quick to double-check.
What if you fail most of this list
That's completely normal. Most stores are starting from zero here, since this is still new. The good news is that fixing it is rarely a big project. If your store runs on Shopify, there's a built-in setting that covers most of this checklist for you. Platforms like WooCommerce, Magento, Wix, Squarespace, and BigCommerce each have their own path, from an official tool to a plugin to a short do-it-yourself file your developer can add. For the full plain-English rundown of what a manifest actually is, see our beginner's guide, and if you want to understand why this is worth doing at all, we cover the real traffic and sales numbers separately in why a UCP manifest matters.
Run through this checklist automatically
Enter your domain and we'll check every item on this list for you in a few seconds, with a specific fix for anything that's missing.
Frequently asked questions
A few seconds. Enter your domain into a UCP checker and it will tell you which items on this checklist your site already passes and which ones need work.
The first four are the ones that matter most: a published manifest, a real product list, a way to pay, and a security signature. Without those, an AI assistant generally cannot do anything useful with your store. The last two, being on HTTPS and testing your setup, are good practice that most stores already have covered.
That is normal, most stores are starting from zero on this. It usually is not a lot of work to fix depending on your platform: some platforms like Shopify have a setting that handles most of the checklist automatically, and others require a plugin or a small file added by a developer.
No. It makes your store something an AI assistant can actually read and act on, similar to how having a website at all makes you findable on Google, but it does not guarantee you will always be the one recommended. It removes the most basic reason to be skipped entirely.