Walmart Opens Doors to AI Agents for Shopping While Amazon Shuts Them Out

Walmart Embraces AI Agents with New Shopping Infrastructure

Walmart announced on Wednesday the launch of its Agent Gateway and Agent Profiles, positioning itself as the first major retailer to fully embrace AI agents for customer shopping1

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. Speaking at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, Walmart President and CEO John Furner revealed the technology will support agentic shopping from both Walmart and Sam's Club1

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. The Walmart Agent Gateway functions as an MCP server designed to help approved AI agents connect over the Model Context Protocol, originally created by Anthropic1

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. This infrastructure allows AI agents like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, and Meta Muse to search across Walmart's online inventory and make purchases on behalf of users5

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Agent Profiles Give Customers Control Over Autonomous Shopping

Rolling out next month, Agent Profiles will enable customers to authorize each AI agent they use with a dedicated profile in their account1

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. Shoppers can see the agent's purchases separately from their own and control how purchases get approved by either requiring approval for each transaction or authorizing transactions within a specific spending limit they set2

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. By default, Walmart will require approval for all AI agent purchases, though customers can let agents shop within a certain budget, such as up to $1002

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. The retailer compares these controls to adding someone as an authorized user on a credit card, where transactions are identified and spending can be capped1

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. Customers can also delete an Agent Profile at any time, and agent support is available for anyone with a Walmart account without requiring a Walmart+ membership1

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Privacy Protection Without Sharing Purchase History

Walmart's Agent Gateway prevents AI agents from accessing customers' shopping history and personal information directly2

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. The retailer developed technology to help customers shop for their usual brands or items without sharing personal information or purchase history with the agent1

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. 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 without sharing the customer's broader shopping history2

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. Walmart emphasized that it prices products, not people, so the prices that AI agents see are the same prices that humans would see on Walmart.com, with applicable offers and fees shown before purchase3

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Walmart vs Amazon: Diverging Strategies on AI-Driven Commerce

Walmart's embrace of AI agents stands in stark contrast to Amazon, which recently blocked Meta Muse from perusing and buying products on its platform less than two weeks after it launched3

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. Amazon cited concerns over customer security and user experience, saying it did not authorize Muse to access customer accounts, scrape data or process transactions3

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. GlobalData Retail analyst Neil Saunders suggests Amazon is attempting to maintain its closed ecosystem and likely fears that agentic shopping could undermine its advertising business3

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. Amazon is betting that its own AI tools, including Alexa for Shopping, will aid customers who want to use that technology3

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. However, the calculation could change if third-party agents start to play a much bigger role in discovery and purchasing3

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Strict Terms for AI Agents and Customer-Friendly Returns

Walmart introduced special terms for AI agents, specifying how they must operate and what rights they have to transact on its site1

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. The terms state that agents must not take actions beyond what the shopper intends and cannot change a customer's payment method2

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. Agents can only access information needed to complete their task and cannot access customers' payment information1

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. Walmart will block agents that don't comply with these terms2

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. Notably, Walmart's returns process applies even when an agent doesn't act as intended, a customer-friendly condition that could sway consumers worried about being early testers of agentic commerce1

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Strategic Positioning in the Agentic Shopping Revolution

Walmart may be particularly well positioned to benefit from outside shopping agents3

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. The company's longstanding emphasis on everyday low prices could attract the attention of AI agents with marching orders to find the best possible deals3

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. University of Virginia business professor Luca Cian, who has studied AI shopping, notes that customers are more likely to trust AI to recommend practical products than items for pleasure or life experience3

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. Walmart happens to traffic heavily in practical items like groceries, clothes and home goods3

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. Mizuho analyst David Bellinger stated in a note that the tools instill confidence in the experimental shopping process of agentic purchases, adding that the momentum and buy-in from top management teams seems to be making this into a real thing5

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. For now, agentic shopping remains a sliver of overall retail spending, but retailers expect it to accelerate quickly as consumers become more comfortable deploying AI agents to do their business for them3

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