Walmart is welcoming AI agents to shop on its platform while its biggest rival takes the opposite approach, the retailer announced Wednesday. The company unveiled its Agent Gateway and a suite of new features designed to manage purchases made by artificial intelligence systems acting on behalf of customers. The announcement came just days after Amazon began preventing AI agents from completing transactions for online shoppers, marking a sharp divide in how major retailers are responding to the rise of agentic commerce.
The new technology centers on Walmart's Agent Gateway, an MCP server built to let approved AI agents connect to the retailer through the model context protocol, which Anthropic originally created. The gateway enables AI agents to browse Walmart's online inventory and complete purchases without requiring customers to hand over their personal details or shopping history directly to the agent. Rolling out next month, Agent Profiles will give each customer the ability to authorize individual AI agents with dedicated profiles in their account, keeping agent purchases separate from their own. Shoppers can demand approval for every transaction or set spending caps that automatically authorize purchases below a certain threshold, similar to adding an authorized user to a credit card where you can track and limit their spending. The system works for anyone with a Walmart account and doesn't require a Walmart+ membership, and the technology will support shopping at both Walmart and Sam's Club.
Walmart president and CEO John Furner, speaking at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday, said the company is building infrastructure to prepare for a future where AI agents become mainstream. The retailer emphasized that its standard returns process will apply even when an agent doesn't behave as expected, a customer-friendly policy that could reassure early adopters worried about ending up with unwanted products due to agent mistakes. Walmart has also introduced special terms for AI agents that spell out how they must operate on its site, including rules that agents can't take actions beyond what the shopper intends, can't access payment information, and can only access information necessary for the specific task at hand.
Walmart's decision to embrace agent technology sets it apart from competitors that have responded to growing consumer adoption of AI agents by locking them out entirely, including not only Amazon but also various travel and booking sites. The company had previously announced a partnership with Meta's Muse and offers integrations with popular AI applications like ChatGPT and Gemini. Customers will create an Agent Profile the first time they use a particular agent to shop through the Walmart Agent Gateway by authorizing and linking the profile to their Walmart account, then setting controls or spending limits. The retailer notes that customers can delete an Agent Profile whenever they choose, and agents that fail to comply with the company's terms will be blocked from accessing the site. By establishing clear boundaries while keeping the door open, Walmart is betting that early adoption will give it an advantage as agentic shopping evolves from experimental to everyday. The company's willingness to build dedicated infrastructure and customer protections suggests it views AI agents not as a threat to control but as a channel worth cultivating before the market matures and competitors catch up.