Walmart’s logo, introduced in January 2025. Image: Walmart / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (text logo; trademark of Walmart), cropped
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Amazon keeps locking AI agents out of its store. Walmart is inviting them in. The world’s biggest retailer said on Wednesday it will let shoppers send their own AI agents to buy from Walmart.com and Sam’s Club, through a new “Agent Gateway” built for bots, with spending limits and approvals set by the customer.
Walmart president and CEO John Furner unveiled the plan at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, TechCrunch reported. It has three parts: Agent Profiles, the Agent Gateway and a new set of rules that agents must follow.
Every agent gets its own profile #
Today, an agent shopping at Walmart signs in as you, so its orders are mixed in with yours. Agent Profiles, which Walmart says are launching within the next month, give each agent you authorise its own profile inside your account, so you can see what it bought separately.
You decide how purchases get approved: either you sign off on every order, or you let the agent spend up to a limit you set. Walmart gives $50, $100 and $200 as examples, and compares it to adding someone as a cardholder on your credit card. A profile is created automatically the first time you use an agent through the gateway; you link it by signing into your Walmart account, and you can delete it at any time. TechCrunch reports that any Walmart account holder can use it, with no Walmart+ membership needed.
Walmart also says agents will see the same prices a person would on Walmart.com, with offers and fees shown before purchase. “We price products, not people,” its announcement says.
A side door built for bots #
Agents that shop on Walmart’s site today do it through a web browser, clicking through pages designed for people, which Walmart calls slow and error-prone. The Agent Gateway is an MCP server, using the Model Context Protocol that Anthropic created, so approved agents can search Walmart’s inventory and buy for their users directly. It starts as a beta for companies and developers.
The gateway can also help an agent find your usual items, such as a regular brand of milk or sourdough bread, without handing it your wider purchase history. Walmart hasn’t named which agents are approved for the beta. It already sells through its own assistant, Sparky, and through integrations with Meta’s Muse, ChatGPT and Gemini.
The rules for AI shoppers #
Walmart has also written terms for AI agents. The main ones:
- Returns still apply: Walmart’s normal returns process covers you, including when an agent doesn’t act as intended.
- Approval by default: you approve agent purchases unless you set a limit, and Walmart may ask for extra approval even within it.
- No card details: agents never receive your payment card information and can’t add or change payment methods.
- Only what’s needed: agents get only the information the task needs and you allow, and must not go beyond what you intended.
What you share with an agent falls under that company’s privacy policy, not Walmart’s. Agents that break the terms will be blocked from Walmart’s site.
The opposite of Amazon #
That last rule is where Walmart and Amazon part ways. Amazon blocked Meta’s Muse from its store in September, saying the agent never identified itself and was capturing customers’ logins, and it has fought Perplexity’s Comet browser in court. Walmart is betting that agents which identify themselves, sign in through its own front door and follow its rules are customers worth having.
It isn’t the only retail giant opening up. Walmart-owned Flipkart is already testing a Buy button inside Gemini in India, and agent makers are building in the same safeguards: Anthropic’s new Claude Duet app asks before it pays for anything.
The announcement covers Walmart.com and Sam’s Club, both US businesses. Walmart hasn’t said whether Agent Profiles or the gateway will come to its stores elsewhere, such as Walmart Canada, Walmart de México or Flipkart in India.
Why it matters #
The fight over AI shopping agents is really a fight over who owns the customer. By letting agents in on its own terms, with spending limits, separate profiles and a returns promise, Walmart is betting it can stay the store your AI picks while Amazon keeps the door shut.
Sources: Walmart (announcement), Walmart Agent Gateway, TechCrunch.