Under the Hood: Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)

The Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is a new, open-source standard for agentic commerce, co-developed by Google and industry leaders. It establishes a common, secure language to connect consumer surfaces (like Gemini and AI Mode in Search) with business backends, enabling seamless shopping from product discovery to purchase. UCP simplifies integration for businesses, supports various payment providers, and is designed to power the next generation of conversational commerce experiences.

This Week in Open Source #12

by Daryl Ducharme & amanda casari, Google Open Source

This Week in Open Source for January 9, 2026

A look around the world of open source

Here we are at the beginning of a new year. What will it bring to the open source world? What new projects will be started? What should we be focusing on? What is your open source resolution for 2026? One of ours is to better connect with various open source communities on social media. We've gotten off to a big start by launching an official Google Open Source account on Bluesky. Already, we are enjoying the community there.

Upcoming Events

  • January 21 - 23: Everything Open 2026 is happening in Canberra, Australia. Everything Open is a conference focused on open technologies, including Linux, open source software, open hardware and open data, and the communities that surround them. The conference provides technical deep-dives as well as updates from industry leaders and experts on a wide array of topics from these areas.
  • January 29: CHAOSScon Europe 2026 is co-located with FOSDEM in Brussels, Belgium. This conference revolves around discussing open source project health, CHAOSS updates, use cases, and hands-on workshops for developers, community managers, project managers, and anyone interested in measuring open source project health. It also shares insights from the CHAOSS context working groups including OSPOs, University Open Source, and Open Source in Science and Research.
  • January 31 - February 1: FOSDEM 2026 is happening at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels, Belgium. It is a free event for software developers to meet, share ideas and collaborate. Every year, thousands of developers of free and open source software from all over the world gather at the event in Brussels.
  • February 24 - 25: The Linux Foundation Member Summit is happening in Napa, California. It is the annual gathering for Linux Foundation members that fosters collaboration, innovation, and partnerships among the leading projects and organizations working to drive digital transformation with open source technologies.

Open Source Reads and Links

  • [Talk] State of the Source at ATO 2025: State of the "Open" AI - At the end of last year Open Source Initiative gave a summary of Gabriel Toscano's talk at All Things Open. In the talk he discusses how AI models call themselves "open" but often lack the legal or technical freedoms that true open source requires. Analysis of ~20,000 Hugging Face models found Apache 2.0 and MIT are common, but many models have no license or use restrictive custom terms. The study warns that inconsistent labeling and mutable restrictions muddy openness and urges clearer licensing and platform checks.
  • [Article] The Reality of Open Source: More Puppies, Less Beer - Bitnami's removal of popular containers last year shows that open source can suddenly change and disrupt users. Organizations must evaluate who funds and maintains each open source component, not just the code. Plan for business continuity, supply-chain visibility, and the ability to fork or replace critical components.
  • [Blog] The Open Source Community and U.S. Public Policy - The Open Source Initiative is increasing its U.S. policy work to ensure open source developers are part of technology and AI rulemaking. Since policymakers often lack deep knowledge of open source, the community must explain how shared code differs from deployed systems. Joining groups like the Open Policy Alliance helps nonprofits engage and influence policy.
  • [Article] Pebble, the e-ink smartwatch that refuses to die, just went fully open source - Pebble, the e-ink smartwatch with a tumultuous history, is making a move sure to please the DIY enthusiasts that make up the bulk of its fans: Its entire software stack is now fully open source, and key hardware design files are available too.
  • [Article] Forget Predictions: Tech Leaders' Actual 2026 Resolutions - We want to know your open source resolutions and perhaps these resolutions from some tech leaders (open source and otherwise) can point you in a direction. Their plans run the gamut of securing and managing AI responsibly, reducing noise in security data, and creating healthier tech habits. The common theme is intentional, measurable change over speculation.
  • [Paper] Everything is Context: Agentic File System Abstraction for Context Engineering - GenAI systems may produce inaccurate or misleading outputs due to limited contextual awareness and evolving data sources. Thus mechanisms are needed to govern how persistent knowledge transitions into bounded context in a traceable, verifiable, and human-aware manner, ensuring that human judgment and knowledge are embedded within the system's evolving context for reasoning and evaluation.

    The paper proposes using a file-system abstraction based on the open-source AIGNE framework to manage all types of context for generative AI agents. This unified infrastructure makes context persistent, traceable, and governed so agents can read, write, and version memory, tools, and human input.

What exciting open source events and news are you hearing about? Let us know on our @GoogleOSS X account or our new @opensource.google Bluesky account.

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – January 9, 2026

A summary of announcements from the last week:

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog over the last week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.

Manage Apple Intelligence Writing Tools in Google Workspace iOS apps

Admins can now disable Apple Intelligence Writing Tools within Google Workspace apps. This provides greater data protection and risk mitigation on iOS 18.1+ devices. Simply toggle the setting in the Admin console to hide these external features. Users will no longer see the "Writing Tools" option when selecting text. | Learn more about managing Apple Intelligence Writing Tools in Google Workspace iOS apps.

Now generally available: Migrate files from Dropbox to Google Drive

Admins can use the New Data Migration service to migrate data from Dropbox business accounts, including files, folders and associated permissions, helping organizations transition to Google Workspace quickly and easily. | Learn more about migrating files from Dropbox to Google Drive.

Generate podcast-style audio lessons in Google Classroom using Gemini

Last year, we made Gemini in Classroom available to all Google Workspace for Education editions with features to help educators create content and resources through one central destination in Classroom. Starting today, educators can now generate and share audio lessons to help students engage more deeply with instructional content and support various learning modalities. | Learn more about generating podcast-style audio lessons in Google Classroom using Gemini.

Control Speech Translation in Google Meet for your users

Google Meet Speech Translation allows translation in near-real time, bridging language barriers across users and organizations. The feature is currently available in alpha but will launch more broadly in beta on January 27, 2026. | Learn more about controlling speech translation in Google Meet for your users.

More user control for “Take notes for me” in Google Meet

We’re introducing a new toggle that lets users choose whether they want to have “Take notes for me” start automatically any time they are hosting a meeting. Previously, meeting hosts had to manually enable “Take notes for me” when they scheduled a call. | Learn more about new user controls for 'Take notes for me' in Google Meet.

Emojis reactions in Gmail will now be on by default

In 2025, we introduced the ability to react to emails in Gmail with emojis. This feature lets users respond quickly to acknowledge receipt of an email in a fun, informal and more authentic way. While initially enabled as an opt-in feature for early customer access, starting February 9, 2026, emoji reactions in Gmail will be enabled by default. | Learn more about default emoji reactions in Gmail.

Chrome Dev for Desktop Update

The Dev channel has been updated to 145.0.7620.3 for Windows, Mac and Linux.

A partial list of changes is available in the Git log. Interested in switching release channels? Find out how. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug. The community help forum is also a great place to reach out for help or learn about common issues.

Chrome Release Team
Google Chrome