Walmart Embraces AI Shopping Agents as Amazon Pushes Back

Walmart said it is adding two tools for third-party AI agents that shop on customers’ behalf: agent profiles and an agent gateway. The move signals that Walmart is preparing for a shopping experience where customers may delegate product searches and purchases to AI tools instead of navigating retail websites themselves.

The immediate takeaway: Walmart is not treating shopping agents only as a threat. It is creating formal ways for them to operate inside its commerce system.

Agent profiles are designed to link transactions to the bot that performed them. Walmart says customers will be able to manage authorizations and spending limits similarly to how they would manage an additional user on a credit card account.

For shoppers, the key value is control: if an AI agent is acting on a customer’s behalf, Walmart wants permissions, limits, and transaction records to be part of the workflow.

Walmart’s agent gateway is meant to keep bots from having to navigate a website built for humans. Instead, Walmart is granting access through a model text protocol that it says will help agents work more quickly and accurately.

The company also says the gateway can protect customer information by sharing only what is needed for a transaction. For example, it could share a relevant preference, such as a favorite laundry detergent brand, without exposing an entire purchase history.

Walmart’s approach contrasts with Amazon, which recently blocked Meta’s Muse agent from its site and said agents violate Amazon’s conditions of use. Amazon has also pushed back on other third-party agents, including through a lawsuit against Perplexity and restrictions on agents from Google and OpenAI.

This sets up a broader retail split: one major retailer is building lanes for third-party agents, while another is trying to limit how they interact with its marketplace.

Walmart said it has laid out terms and conditions for how AI agents are expected to operate while shopping. Under those terms, Walmart says it will honor its usual returns policy and that agents will see the same pricing a human would see on Walmart.com.

Those details are important because agent-led shopping will depend on trust. Customers, retailers, and AI companies will all need clear rules for permissions, data sharing, pricing, and what happens when an AI-assisted purchase needs to be returned.