AI Shopping: Yandex Opens a New Commerce Protocol for Online Stores
Russian online retailers can now access agentic commerce without hiring developers. Yandex has opened self-service integration through the Yandex Commerce Protocol (YCP), connecting stores to high-traffic services including Alice AI, Search and the company’s recommendation feed.
Using YCP, retailers can build sales models where AI agents act as both shopping assistants and consultants. The systems can independently search for products, compare options, select items and complete purchases, while consumers only need to specify the desired parameters in advance.
Alice Picks the Product
YCP connects retailer product data with Yandex’s AI-driven shopping scenarios. That shortens the customer journey and saves time because users no longer need to manually sort through dozens of listings and reviews. Instead, all requirements can be specified in a spoken conversation with Alice AI, which analyzes advantages and drawbacks before surfacing relevant offers.
Users can complete purchases within the same interface. At the same time, the store remains the direct seller and retains customer data ownership. During the testing phase, more than one million Yandex Go users joined the waiting list for access to the service.
YCP gives retailers a way to compete with marketplaces without giving up control over customers, logistics or pricing. For businesses, that creates opportunities to expand their customer base and increase sales volume. Demand appears strong: 2,270 companies applied for integration during the first rollout phase.
Access to online sales through Alice AI, Search and the recommendation feed has been opened to online stores working with Yandex Market or operating on the Yandex KIT platform. Several integration paths are available, ranging from ready-made modules for 1C-Bitrix and Yandex KIT to API-based setup through the Yandex Products dashboard. That lowers the barrier to entry for small and midsize businesses.
The Road to Agentic Commerce
Tools that simplify online shopping now carry macroeconomic weight because faster digitalization is fueling e-commerce growth. In 2025, Russia’s online retail market reached 11.5 trillion rubles (approximately $147 billion), up 28% year over year. More than 96% of sales went through Russian platforms.
In 2025, Yandex launched its own SaaS platform, Yandex KIT, replacing foreign online-store builders. Embedded AI tools help businesses not only assemble storefronts, but also generate content, analyze customer audiences, manage orders and promote brands. Meanwhile, Yandex Market rolled out an AI-powered chat interface for customer interactions. In 2026, Alice AI also learned how to help Yandex Go users choose products.
Reshaping E-Commerce
“By 2026, AI agents had learned to navigate websites confidently – without errors, unnecessary actions or getting stuck,” StormWall CEO and co-founder Ramil Khantimirov told Forbes. “Users themselves are now ready to delegate simple tasks to AI platforms.”
The growth of agentic commerce, where purchasing is embedded directly into the interfaces people already use to search for information, is reshaping the online sales funnel. Product pages now need to be optimized for machine readability, comply with feed and microdata requirements and support checkout and payment without unnecessary redirects. That is creating new demand for the Russian IT sector, whose solutions are expected to further improve neural-network maturity and accelerate the country’s digital economy.
