On Friday just gone, five of the largest technology companies in the world quietly joined the governing body of the Universal Commerce Protocol. No press release. No blog post. Just a commit to MAINTAINERS.md in the spec repository. Amazon. Meta. Microsoft. Salesforce. Stripe. All now have seats on the UCP Tech Council — the body that reviews, debates, and approves every change to the protocol that AI shopping agents use to buy things. We know this because we read the meeting minutes. Every week, the TC meets to debate spec changes, vote on PRs, and argue about how agent commerce should work. Most people in the industry don't read these minutes. We do — and what they reveal about where UCP is heading is more interesting than any announcement. This is what the minutes tell us. The expansion: who joined and why it matters The Tech Council grew from roughly 12 seats to 16 members across 8 companies : Company Representatives Role Google 4 seats Founding sponsor, spec steward Shopify 4 seats (incl.…