Business Insider Walmart is rolling out two new tools to help third-party AI agents shop on behalf of customers, embracing a trend that Amazon is resisting.
- Walmart is rolling out two new tools to help third-party AI agents shop on behalf of customers.
- The company says the tools give people more control of their bots, and help bots be more accurate.
- Walmart's move contrasts with Amazon's approach, after it blocked Meta's agent Muse from its site.
Walmart wants your bot to shop.
The retail giant said Wednesday that it has two new tools to help third-party AI agents shop on customers' behalf: agent profiles and an agent gateway.
The agent profiles link all transactions to the bot that performed them, and allow Walmart customers to manage authorizations and spending limits as they would for an additional user on their credit card account, the company said.
With agent gateways, bots no longer have to navigate a website that is designed for humans. Instead, Walmart is granting access through a model text protocol that it says will help agents work more quickly and accurately.
Walmart's move contrasts with Amazon's approach, which recently blocked Meta's agent Muse from its site, saying agents violate Amazon's conditions of use. Amazon has also pushed back on other third-party agents, including a lawsuit against Perplexity and restrictions on agents from Google and OpenAI.
"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," the company said in a statement.
The company also said the gateway protects the information that Walmart has about its customers, and only provides what is necessary for completing a given transaction. In particular, the gateway can share a relevant pattern or preference — such as a customer's favorite laundry detergent brand — without sharing their entire purchase history with the agent.
The company also laid out a set of terms and conditions regarding how AI agents are expected to operate when shopping.
Under the terms, the company said it will honor its usual returns policy and that agents will always see the same pricing that a human would see on Walmart.com.
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