{"slug": "walmart-makes-it-possible-for-agents-to-shop-on-behalf-of-customers", "title": "Walmart Makes It Possible for Agents to Shop on Behalf of Customers", "summary": "Walmart introduced Agent Profiles, the Walmart Agent Gateway and terms for AI agents, letting customers authorize AI agents to shop on their behalf with separate purchase histories and customer-set spending limits such as $50, $100 or $200. Agent Profiles launch in the next month, and the Agent Gateway gives agents a faster, more reliable shopping path using an MCP-based protocol instead of the human-facing website. Walmart said prices seen by an AI agent match those a human sees on Walmart.com, with applicable offers and fees shown before purchase.", "body_md": "**Subscribe to Walmart News Alerts**\n\nGet Walmart corporate news delivered to your inbox.\n\nWhen Sam Walton opened the first Walmart more than 60 years ago, he set out to help people save money and live better. He believed new ideas and technology could make that possible – and that spirit still drives us today.\n\nToday, we serve customers through stores and clubs, online shopping, pickup and delivery, Sparky and conversational commerce integrations with Muse, ChatGPT, Gemini and others. We want to be wherever customers choose to shop, bringing Walmart and Sam’s Club’s broad assortment, convenience and everyday low prices into the experiences they already use.\n\nShopping keeps changing, and Walmart has never been one to stand still. As AI agents become more mainstream, we’re not waiting to see what shopping becomes – we’re helping shape it, guided by our values – respect, integrity, service and excellence – and by listening and responding to our customers.\n\nThat’s why we’re introducing Agent Profiles, the Walmart Agent Gateway and terms for AI agents. Together, these tools will let customers shop with Walmart and Sam’s Club through the apps and agents they choose, with clear permissions, controls and protections built in.\n\nShopping with an agent won’t be for everyone, and it doesn’t have to be. But for customers who choose to use one, our goal is to make our experience the most trusted by building clear controls and protections into the experience from the start.\n\n### **Agent Profiles: A dedicated profile for agents**\n\nToday, when a customer uses an AI agent, it signs in using a customer’s account. This means that all purchases – whether made by the customer or the agent – appear together, without any differentiation.\n\nAgent Profiles, launching in the next month, will offer a new level of transparency for customers. Customers will be able to authorize each AI agent with a dedicated profile within the customer’s account, so the customers will be able to see the agent’s purchases separately from the rest of their purchases.\n\nIn addition, the customers will be able to determine how they want to approve purchases. They can require approval for every purchase or provide permission for the agent to make purchases within a spending limit they set – for example, $50, $100 or $200. That will give the agent a way to help while the customer stays in control.\n\nThink about it like adding someone as a cardholder on your credit card. You can give them a way to pay, set a spending limit and keep track of how the card is used. Here, an agent gets its own profile to shop, with permissions and spending limits set by the customer and the ability to turn them off at any time.\n\nAnd whether customers choose to shop directly or through an agent, our commitment to Every Day Low Price remains the same. We price products, not people, so the prices that an AI agent sees are the same prices that a human would see on Walmart.com, with applicable offers and fees shown before purchase.\n\n#### **Agent Profiles: How it Works**\n\n1. **Start in the agent’s app** . The first time you use an agent to shop through the Walmart Agent Gateway, Walmart will automatically create an Agent Profile for that agent.\n2. **Connect through Walmart** . You'll authorize and link that Agent Profile to your account by signing into your Walmart account. Only Walmart sees this.\n3. **Set your controls** . Choose a spending limit and see purchases from every agent.  Delete an Agent Profile at any time.\n\n### **The Walmart Agent Gateway: Talking to agents, like agents**\n\nToday, agents may shop on Walmart’s site through a web browser, following steps designed for people. This can be slow and error-prone, and agents may get stuck along the way. But the website is built for people to browse, click and sign in themselves. The way agents shop is different, and so we are building the Walmart Agent Gateway which will give agents a faster, more reliable way to shop by using an MCP (model text protocol). We'll begin with a [beta for companies and developers](http://www.walmart.com/agents).\n\nAnother benefit of the Walmart Agent Gateway will be the ability to help agents shop for a customer’s usuals without having to share their personal information or purchase history with the agent. For example, if a customer tends to buy sourdough bread or a particular brand of milk, Walmart will help the agent find those usual items for the customer without sharing the customer’s broader shopping history.\n\n### **Terms for AI Agents**\n\nIn addition to profiles and a gateway designed for agent shopping, we are also setting clear expectations for how agents must operate, establishing what agents can and cannot do when shopping on behalf of a Walmart customer:\n\n- Customers are in control, and Walmart’s returns process applies – including if an agent doesn’t act as intended.\n- Customers must approve agent purchases by default, and Walmart may require additional approvals even for purchases within an agent’s spending limits.\n- Agents must not take actions beyond what the shopper intends.\n- Agents don’t receive customers’ payment-card information and can’t add or change a customer’s payment methods.\n- Agents can access only the information needed for the task and allowed by the customer.\n- The agent’s privacy policy applies to the information it receives. The company that provides the agent handles what you share with its app under its privacy policy. Walmart collects and processes information the agent provides in accordance with Walmart's Privacy Notice.\n- Agents that do not follow these terms will be blocked from Walmart’s site.\n\nPut simply, Agent Profiles give customers control over what their agents can do, the Walmart Agent Gateway provides a reliable way for agents to shop, and our terms establish the rules those agents must follow.\n\nWe’ve always worked to understand what customers need and make shopping easier for them. As customers begin using agents to help them shop, we’re building connections, permissions and options that complement those tools and support how customers want to use them. It’s just another way we’re living our commitment to serve customers and earn the trust they place in us every day.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/walmart-makes-it-possible-for-agents-to-shop-on-behalf-of-customers", "canonical_source": "https://corporate.walmart.com/news/2026/10/Making-It-Possible-for-Agents-to-Shop-on-Behalf-of-Customers", "published_at": "2026-10-23 20:57:50+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-23 21:12:44.192304+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "agent-protocols", "ai-products"], "entities": ["Walmart", "Sam's Club", "Agent Profiles", "Walmart Agent Gateway", "Muse", "ChatGPT", "Gemini", "Sam Walton"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/walmart-makes-it-possible-for-agents-to-shop-on-behalf-of-customers", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/walmart-makes-it-possible-for-agents-to-shop-on-behalf-of-customers.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/walmart-makes-it-possible-for-agents-to-shop-on-behalf-of-customers.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/walmart-makes-it-possible-for-agents-to-shop-on-behalf-of-customers.jsonld"}}