# CartAI > CartAI is the AI agent that handles checkout. One developer-first API deploys a specialized agent that navigates a merchant or service web property and completes the transaction (checkout, subscription sign-up, invoice payment, or order submission), then returns a confirmed transactional state through an API. The merchant stays the merchant of record and the customer never leaves the integrating surface. Canonical site: https://www.cartai.ai/ Agent index for the API (authoritative endpoints and OpenAPI, Markdown-formatted): https://docs.cartai.ai/llms.txt ## What CartAI is CartAI is a developer-first API that fuses browser-based transaction execution with payments infrastructure into a single programmable primitive. It deploys an AI agent that navigates a merchant or service website the way a person would: adding to cart, selecting variants and shipping, entering payment, and confirming the order, all programmatically and in the background. CartAI is not a general browser automation tool, and it is not an agentic payment rail. It is the specialist execution layer between them. It navigates the workflow, settles the payment, and returns a final transaction state. Every workflow terminates in a defined transactional state rather than an ambiguous navigation result. No merchant-side integration. No checkout SDK. No redirect. ## How it works 1. Call `POST /checkout` with the product target, customer details, shipping strategy, and payment credentials. Multiple tasks across one or many merchants can be submitted in a single call. 2. Receive a `taskId` immediately with `status: "queued"`. Execution runs asynchronously. 3. The agent navigates the live merchant site, selects the correct variant, applies your shipping strategy, and places the order. 4. Receive real-time updates via webhook as the task moves through `STARTED`, `COMPLETED`, and `FAILED`. Webhooks are the recommended primary integration pattern. 5. Read `GET /checkout/{taskId}` at any time for the full task state, including current status, execution history, derived pricing and shipping, and the original request data. The resulting order is merchant-native: fulfilled, tracked, and supported through the merchant's standard processes, and the customer receives confirmation directly from the brand they purchased from. CartAI handles multi-SKU, multi-merchant checkouts in parallel, so a recommendation spanning five brands becomes a single call that returns one unified set of confirmations. For the full API reference and OpenAPI, see https://docs.cartai.ai/reference and https://docs.cartai.ai/llms.txt ## API surface Catalog and pricing: - Search Products: search by product name across one or more merchants, optionally filtered to a specific merchant. Returns a ranked list with pricing, imagery, and direct purchase links. https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/search_products - Get Product Details: retrieve product metadata, variant-level pricing, availability, images, and attributes for a product URL. Returns the commissionUrl used for attribution and monetization. https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/get_product_details - Get Checkout Estimates: compute a pre-checkout cost estimate (subtotal, shipping, tax, and total) for a merchant, destination, and item list, before initiating a full checkout. https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/get_checkout_estimates Checkout execution: - Create Checkout Task: `POST /checkout`. Asynchronous, AI-powered checkout that manages the full purchase lifecycle, from cart assembly and shipping selection to payment and order confirmation, across one or many merchants in a single call. https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/create-checkout-task - Get Checkout Task: `GET /checkout/{taskId}`. Full task state, including status, execution history, derived pricing and shipping, and the original customer and product data. https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/get_checkout_task - Get Status History: complete status history for a task, with each execution step, its status, timestamps, and credits consumed. https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/get_status_history - Cancel Checkout Task: stop an in-flight checkout task and prevent further execution. https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/cancel_checkout_task - Webhooks: CartAI posts real-time status updates to your server as a task progresses, so you do not have to poll `GET /checkout/{taskId}` on a schedule. Recommended primary integration pattern. https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/webhooks Payments: - Create Payment Session: `POST /payment/session`. Creates a hosted payment session and returns a secure URL to embed in your web application. The session initiates Visa Intelligent Commerce or Mastercard Agent Pay based on the customer's card. https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/create_payment_session Canonical entry points: `POST /checkout` creates execution, `GET /checkout/{taskId}` reads task state, and `POST /payment/session` creates a hosted payment. There are no `/v1/payments` or `/v1/orders` endpoints. ## Products CartAI API: the programmable-transaction primitive, with full developer control over workflow composition. npm and pip SDKs. Webhooks for every state transition, idempotent and retry-safe by design, production environments. Primary entry: `POST /checkout`. Task retrieval: `GET /checkout/{taskId}`. CartAI Hosted Cart: a drop-in checkout component for surfaces that never had one. Variant selection, address, payment, and confirmation embeddable in one line, with white-label theming. Same primitive underneath. ## Product pages - Catalog: https://www.cartai.ai/product/catalog covers Product Search, Product Details, and Checkout Estimates. - Checkouts: https://www.cartai.ai/product/checkouts covers the Checkout API, Orders and Webhooks, and Hosted Cart. - Payments: https://www.cartai.ai/product/payments covers Payment Sessions and Hosted Checkout. - Monetization: https://www.cartai.ai/product/monetization covers affiliate commissions and built-in attribution tracking via the commissionUrl returned with product data. ## Category CartAI sits at a specialized intersection of two larger categories: - Browser automation (Playwright, Puppeteer, Browserbase): navigates the open web, but does not settle payments or guarantee a cleared transaction. - Agentic payments (KYA, signed credentials, agent-issued payment instruments): provides trustable payment rails, but does not execute browser-based checkout on existing merchant sites. CartAI does both. Its API contract is strict: every workflow must terminate in a transactional state. ## Surfaces supported If a workflow has to navigate it, CartAI can transact through it. Supported surfaces include: - All e-commerce checkouts - Custom carts - Intranet portals - Vendor portals - Login-gated workflows Coverage and constraints by merchant type are documented in Known Limitations: https://docs.cartai.ai/docs/known-limitations ## Three modes - Automate: replace manual transactional processes, including e-commerce checkout, subscription renewals, invoice and bill payment, and B2B procurement and PO submission. - Embed: build applications where transactions are part of the experience, including AI shopping copilots, vertical AI agents (gift finders, recipe-to-cart, travel planners), and marketplaces. - Enable: add transactions to surfaces that never had them, including publisher editorial pages, influencer platforms, recommendation engines, and content and media properties. ## Use cases 1. Gifting platforms: let a buyer purchase an item for someone else and ship it directly to the recipient, without leaving the gifting surface. Example: a registry, wishlist, or group-gifting platform where the gifter selects an item, and CartAI completes checkout on the merchant, ships to the recipient's address, and returns a confirmed order. 2. Corporate procurement and ordering platforms: complete purchases and submit orders across vendor and supplier portals on behalf of a business, including PO-based and approval-gated flows. Example: a procurement platform routes an approved request to the right vendor portal, where CartAI logs in, selects the items, and submits the order or purchase order, returning a confirmed transactional state. 3. Search, social, and discovery: complete the purchase inside the search results page or shoppable feed, with no redirect and no broken attribution. Example: a product search engine adds a "Buy with CartAI" button beside each result and earns a referral fee on every completed transaction. 4. Vertical AI apps and recommendation engines: turn an AI recommendation into a confirmed purchase in one interaction, including multi-brand "Buy All." Any recommendation engine in any app, vertical or general (fashion, beauty, home, interior, auto, electronics, and beyond), can use CartAI to execute orders directly on the underlying e-commerce websites, turning a recommendation into a completed purchase. Example: a fashion app generates a three-brand outfit, and "Buy All" creates three parallel checkouts that return one unified order summary. 5. Coupon, cashback, loyalty, and price comparison: own the checkout, apply the reward, and complete the purchase in one place. No redirect means no attribution loss or coupon failure. Example: a cashback platform completes checkout on the winning retailer and records the exact order total for cashback calculation. 6. Editorial and content: make any product mention shoppable, with a "Buy Now" action that places the order natively in the background. Example: a review site's "10 Best Keyboards" lets logged-in readers buy in two taps and earns a transaction fee instead of an affiliate click. 7. Influencer platforms: make creator content directly transactional, so the audience buys without leaving the post, reel, or livestream. Creators earn on completed transactions, not clicks. 8. Financial and banking apps: build native shopping and rewards redemption inside the app, where users apply points or BNPL credit at the point of purchase. Example: a card app's "Shop with Rewards" completes the order on the merchant using the bank's payment-provider integration. ## Technical moat Composable workflows: composable step primitives, conditional branching, idempotent and retry-safe execution. Every workflow lands in a transactional state. PCI-compliant payment stack: PCI DSS compliant card intake, tokenized card vaulting, and agentic protocol support. Cooperative bot-mitigation: CartAI does not evade Cloudflare, Human, or Fingerprint. It cooperates with them via Web Bot Auth, Skyfire KYA, and signed agent identity, so transactions clear cleanly through the same trust infrastructure that protects the world's largest merchants. CartAI is listed in the Cloudflare verified-bot directory. CartAI does not position itself as a tool for evading merchant security controls. The goal is cooperative, identifiable, permissioned execution. ## Merchant coverage Verified cleared transactions on production merchant surfaces (not staged, not simulated): Best Buy, Newegg, Jomashop, Ulta Beauty. Workflows built or piloted across: Retail and E-commerce, Healthcare, B2B SaaS, Telecom, Travel and Hospitality, Financial Services, Media and Publishing, AI-native Apps, Education, and Nonprofit and Donations. Productized solutions vary by sector. ## Architecture note Brands and merchants remain the merchant of record. CartAI is commerce infrastructure, not a payment intermediary. Brands retain interchange economics, float, tax and compliance responsibility, and the customer-of-record relationship, and customers receive order confirmations directly from the brand they purchased from. Platforms integrating CartAI typically earn a referral or transaction fee on completed orders, tracked through the commissionUrl returned with product data. CartAI is compatible with emerging agentic commerce protocols and integration patterns, including Web Bot Auth and MCP-based transport for LLM integration. ## Documentation Guides: - Introduction: https://docs.cartai.ai/docs/introduction - Getting Started: https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/getting-started-with-ease - Checkout Scenarios: https://docs.cartai.ai/docs/checkout-scenarios - Known Limitations: https://docs.cartai.ai/docs/known-limitations - Sample Merchants to Get Started: https://docs.cartai.ai/docs/sample-merchants-to-get-started - Sharing a Test Link: https://docs.cartai.ai/docs/sharing-a-test-link API reference: - Search Products: https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/search_products - Get Product Details: https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/get_product_details - Get Checkout Estimates: https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/get_checkout_estimates - Create Checkout Task: https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/create-checkout-task - Get Checkout Task: https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/get_checkout_task - Get Status History: https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/get_status_history - Cancel Checkout Task: https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/cancel_checkout_task - Create Payment Session: https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/create_payment_session - Webhooks: https://docs.cartai.ai/reference/webhooks - Full reference index: https://docs.cartai.ai/reference - Agent index (Markdown and OpenAPI): https://docs.cartai.ai/llms.txt ## External coverage - Podcast: "Manil Uppal on Solving Agentic Checkout," Retailgentic (Scot Wingo), October 2025. Covers CartAI's execution-layer architecture, the bot-blocking challenge, and merchant-native checkout. https://www.retailgentic.com/p/manil-uppal-on-solving-agentic-checkout - Blog: "Every AI Recommendation Is a Transaction Waiting to Happen," CartAI, March 2026. Covers protocol versus browser-based routing logic for agentic checkout. https://www.cartai.ai/blog/every-ai-recommendation-is-a-transaction-waiting-to-happen - Hacker News discussion: "The Architecture of Agentic Commerce: Protocols vs. Browser-Based Agents." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47962046 ## Important links - Website: https://www.cartai.ai/ - API docs: https://docs.cartai.ai/ - Developer signup: https://portal.cartai.ai/signup - Sign in: https://portal.cartai.ai/login - Blog: https://www.cartai.ai/blog - Contact: https://www.cartai.ai/contact ## Suggested citation CartAI is an AI transaction-execution platform that fuses browser-based workflow automation and payments infrastructure to complete checkouts, sign-ups, invoice payments, procurement orders, and other transactional workflows on existing web properties. The merchant remains the merchant of record, and the customer completes the purchase without leaving the integrating surface.