Walmart is getting into the agent business with the launch of its own agent gateway to manage transactions and other new features for customers using AI agents, the retailer announced Wednesday. The move comes shortly after Walmart’s main competitor, Amazon, began blocking AI agents from making purchases on behalf of online shoppers.
The company’s adoption of AI technology differentiates it from other online companies, including Amazon but also various travel and booking sites, which have responded to growing consumer adoption of AI agents by excluding them from their websites entirely. Walmart, for its part, had already announced a partnership with a leading agent in the field, Meta’s Muse, and offers integrations with popular AI applications such as ChatGPT, Gemini and others.
Now the company is expanding those efforts with more technology to prepare for a world where AI agents become commonplace, Walmart Chairman and CEO John Furner said during a speech at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday. The technology will support agent purchases from Walmart and the company’s discount warehouse, Sam’s Club.
It starts with Walmart’s Agent Gateway, the company’s new MCP server, designed to help approved agents connect to Walmart via Model Context Protocol (MCP). The protocol, originally created by Anthropic, allows AI agents to connect to external data sources, tools and other workflows. In this case, it allows an AI agent to search Walmart’s online inventory and make purchases on behalf of the agent’s user.
Additionally, the retailer says its Agent Gateway will be able to help customers purchase their usual brands or items without having to share their personal information or purchase history directly with the agent.
The company also developed new technology to differentiate agent-driven purchases from those initiated directly by the customer and to give buyers more control over what their agents can and cannot do.
With Agent Profiles, rolling out next month, customers will be able to authorize each AI agent they use with a dedicated profile in their account, allowing them to view the agent’s purchases separately from their own. Additionally, customers will control how purchases are approved, either by requiring approval of each transaction or by allowing transactions within a certain spending limit they set.
The retailer says these controls are similar to adding someone as an authorized user on your credit card, where their transactions are identified and you can cap their spending.
Agent profiles will be created the first time you use a given agent to make purchases through Walmart Agent Gateway, the company notes. To get started, you’ll authorize and link the agent profile to your Walmart account, then set your spending controls or limits. You can also delete an agent profile at any time. Agent support is available to anyone with a Walmart account; a Walmart+ subscription is not necessary.
Along with these technologies, Walmart is introducing special “terms” for AI agents, which specify how they must operate and what rights they have to transact on its site. It’s worth noting that Walmart says its returns process applies, including when an agent doesn’t act as expected. This is a customer-friendly condition that could influence consumers who were concerned about being an early tester of the agent trade, as they would not worry about ending up with products they don’t want because of a misbehaving agent.
Walmart also says agents cannot take actions beyond what the shopper wants, cannot access customer payment information, and can only access the information they need for the given task. Agents who do not comply with the conditions will not be able to access the Walmart site.
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