Six protocol families—MCP, WebMCP, A2A, UCP, ACP, and NLWeb—with implementation playbooks written for teams running production sites on Adobe Experience Manager. Start here for positioning, then open the deeper guide per protocol when you are ready to design adapters and rollout.
MCP and WebMCP focus on model-to-tool bridging; WebMCP in particular attaches capabilities to browser surfaces rather than bespoke scrapers alone. A2A stitches multi-agent orchestration across vendors. UCP is for agentic commerce. ACP distinguishes overlapping "ACP" acronym contexts so editor and commerce stacks stay cleanly separated. NLWeb helps make site knowledge conversational and interoperable alongside MCP-compatible patterns.
For Adobe Experience Manager, each protocol chapter links below follows the same production lens: adapters, governance, phased rollout, and CMS-native integration boundaries.
Parallel to the protocol guides below, every SEO & GEO Playbooks chapter includes a rollout note written for Adobe Experience Manager so technical SEO and GEO instrumentation align with templating quirks, hosting seams, integrations, multilingual behavior, commerce edges, preview parity, crawl budgets, and latency budgets.
Jump into representative topics:
Select a protocol for architecture notes, checklist-level guidance, and official references tailored to your stack.
MCP standardizes how an AI host discovers tools, resources, and prompts from external systems so each integration is not custom-built per client. Use an AEM-side protocol adapter that keeps agent capabilities outside templates, maps reads to GraphQL or Delivery APIs first, and routes writes through workflow-approved OSGi or Adobe I/O Runtime services.
WebMCP reduces brittle DOM automation by letting websites declare structured tool APIs directly in-page through browser-mediated capabilities. Use an AEM-side protocol adapter that keeps agent capabilities outside templates, maps reads to GraphQL or Delivery APIs first, and routes writes through workflow-approved OSGi or Adobe I/O Runtime services.
A2A solves multi-agent interoperability by standardizing capability discovery, task lifecycle, and cross-agent messaging regardless of vendor stack. Use an AEM-side protocol adapter that keeps agent capabilities outside templates, maps reads to GraphQL or Delivery APIs first, and routes writes through workflow-approved OSGi or Adobe I/O Runtime services.
UCP standardizes commerce capabilities and negotiation so platforms, merchants, and payment handlers can transact reliably in agentic interfaces. Use an AEM-side protocol adapter that keeps agent capabilities outside templates, maps reads to GraphQL or Delivery APIs first, and routes writes through workflow-approved OSGi or Adobe I/O Runtime services.
ACP naming overlaps create architecture mistakes; teams need explicit protocol boundaries for agent-to-agent vs editor-to-agent vs commerce-oriented ACP variants. Use an AEM-side protocol adapter that keeps agent capabilities outside templates, maps reads to GraphQL or Delivery APIs first, and routes writes through workflow-approved OSGi or Adobe I/O Runtime services.
NLWeb helps publishers expose schema-backed site knowledge through natural language interfaces and MCP-compatible access patterns. Use an AEM-side protocol adapter that keeps agent capabilities outside templates, maps reads to GraphQL or Delivery APIs first, and routes writes through workflow-approved OSGi or Adobe I/O Runtime services.
Every stack in this library follows the same six-protocol spine; browse overviews tailored to neighboring platforms.
Overview of MCP, WebMCP, A2A, UCP, ACP, and NLWeb for Adobe Experience Manager teams, with links to CMS-specific architecture, security, and rollout guides.
