Walmart Opens Its Site to AI Shopping Agents as Amazon Blocks Them
Walmart's Agent Gateway and Agent Profiles give shoppers spending limits and separate records for purchases made by AI agents
By AXY AI Desk ·
Key points
- Walmart announced on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, an Agent Gateway that lets approved AI agents search its online inventory and make purchases for customers.
- Amazon has begun blocking AI agents from making purchases on its site, while Walmart is opening its site to them with controls.
- Agent Profiles, rolling out next month, give each AI agent its own profile in the customer's account, with per-transaction approval or a customer-set spending limit.
- Walmart says its returns process applies even when an agent does not act as intended, and a Walmart+ membership is not needed to use agent support.
Walmart is opening its online store to AI shopping agents, just as its biggest rival has started shutting them out. The retailer announced on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, that it is launching its own Agent Gateway, a system that lets approved AI agents search Walmart's online inventory and make purchases on a customer's behalf. The launch comes with spending controls and approval rules meant to keep shoppers in charge of what software buys for them.
The timing is hard to miss. Amazon, which the source describes as Walmart's top competitor, recently began blocking AI agents from making purchases for people shopping on its site. Walmart is taking the opposite route, and it is doing so in public, with a set of rules designed to make ordinary customers comfortable handing a tool access to their payment methods.
What Walmart announced
Walmart President and CEO John Furner spoke about the plans at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday. He said the company is preparing for a future in which AI agents become mainstream. The new technology will support agentic shopping from both Walmart and Sam's Club, the company's discount warehouse chain.
Agentic commerce is the term for shopping that an AI agent carries out on someone's behalf, from finding a product to paying for it. An AI agent is a piece of software that can take actions for a user, such as searching a website, comparing options or completing a checkout, rather than only answering questions in a chat window.
Walmart's Agent Gateway is the centrepiece. The company describes it as its new MCP server, designed to help approved agents connect to Walmart over the model context protocol. Through that connection, an AI agent can search across Walmart's online inventory and buy items for the person it is working for.
Walmart says the gateway can help customers shop for their usual brands or items without having to share their personal information or purchase history directly with the agent. That is a notable design choice. Many people are wary of letting a shopping tool see their habits, addresses and past orders, because those details can build a detailed picture of their lives.
Explaining the protocol behind the gateway
The model context protocol, usually shortened to MCP, is a set of rules that lets AI tools connect to outside sources in a standard way. Think of it as a common plug shape. If a retailer, a database or a software tool supports the standard, an AI agent that also speaks it can connect without a custom build for each one.
The source says the protocol was originally created by Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude chatbot. It allows AI agents to connect to external data sources, tools and other workflows. In Walmart's case, that connection is used for shopping. The agent can look up stock, pick items and place orders through the gateway.
The standard matters because it makes it easier for many agents to plug into one store. It also makes it easier for a store to decide which agents it lets in. Walmart's gateway is built around approved agents, so the company is not opening the door to every piece of software that asks for access. The source does not say how agents get approved, and that gap is worth keeping in mind.
Why Amazon's decision stands out
Amazon's move to block AI agents from shopping on its site is part of a wider pattern. The source notes that various travel and booking sites have also responded to the growing consumer use of AI agents by locking them out of their websites completely. For these businesses, an agent that can compare prices and book on a customer's behalf may look like a visitor they cannot easily track, control or earn from.
Walmart is reading the same trend differently. It has already moved toward AI platforms. The source says Walmart announced a partnership with Meta's Muse, which it describes as a leading agent in the space, and that Walmart offers integrations with popular AI apps including ChatGPT and Gemini. The new Agent Gateway builds on those earlier links rather than starting from zero.
For shoppers, the split has practical consequences. If a person's favourite AI assistant can buy groceries and household goods at one large retailer but not another, the assistant will work better in some stores than others. Over time, people may start choosing shops partly based on how well their AI tools work there. That turns AI access into a competitive weapon, not just a technical feature.
The split also tests how much trust customers are willing to place in AI software. Handing over a card number to a tool that acts on its own is a different decision from clicking a button yourself. Walmart's bet is that clear limits and a clear paper trail can make that step feel less risky.
Spending limits and separate purchase records
The core of Walmart's trust pitch is a feature called Agent Profiles, which the company says will roll out next month. Each AI agent a customer uses gets a dedicated profile inside that customer's Walmart account. The point is to keep the agent's purchases separate from the customer's own, so the shopper can see at a glance what the software bought.
Customers will also decide how purchases get approved. They can require approval for each transaction, so the agent cannot complete a buy without a yes from the shopper. Or they can authorize transactions within a spending limit they set, letting the agent buy freely up to that amount.
Walmart compares the arrangement to adding someone as an authorized user on a credit card. In that setup, the card holder can see which charges came from the additional user and can cap how much that person spends. Most people already understand that model, which may be why the company chose it as the reference point.
The process starts the first time someone uses a given agent to shop through the Agent Gateway. At that point the Agent Profile is created. To get started, a customer authorizes the agent, links its profile to their Walmart account, and then sets the controls or spending limits. A profile can be deleted at any time.
Walmart also says agent support is open to anyone with a Walmart account. A Walmart+ membership, the company's paid subscription program, is not required. That detail matters because it means the feature is not limited to the retailer's paying members.
New terms and the returns promise
Walmart is introducing a separate set of terms for AI agents. These terms set out how agents must operate on the site and what rights they have to make transactions there. The company has not, in the source material, published a full list of those rules in the article, so the details will matter once shoppers can read them.
One condition stands out. Walmart says its returns process applies even when an agent does not act as intended. In plain terms, if an agent buys the wrong size, the wrong brand or something the shopper never wanted, the customer can still return it under the normal returns policy.
That is a customer-friendly position, and it addresses a specific fear. People who are early to a new kind of shopping often worry about ending up with products they did not want because a piece of software misread an instruction. By stating that returns still apply when an agent misbehaves, Walmart is trying to remove that risk before it becomes a reason to stay away.
It is also a signal about responsibility. A retailer that accepts agent purchases and then promises the normal returns process is taking on some of the cost of a mistake, rather than pushing all of it onto the shopper or the AI company that made the tool.
What to watch next
Several questions remain open. The source does not say how many AI agents will be approved for the Agent Gateway, or how Walmart will decide which agents qualify. Those choices will shape who ends up with access and who is shut out, even if Walmart's stated rules are clear.
The next concrete milestone is the rollout of Agent Profiles next month. How smoothly that goes will show whether the spending limits and approval controls work as described for ordinary customers, not just in a product demonstration. Shoppers will also be watching how easy it is to link an agent, change a limit and delete a profile when they want to.
The larger question is whether other retailers follow Walmart or Amazon. If more large sellers open their sites with controls like these, AI shopping could become a normal part of everyday online buying. If more sellers close their doors, AI agents may stay confined to a smaller set of platforms, and shoppers may have to choose which assistant they trust and which stores they can use it in.
For now, the choice facing customers is simple to describe, even if it is hard to judge. Walmart is asking them to hand a tool a spending cap and a paper trail, and to rely on the returns policy if the tool gets something wrong. Amazon is, for the moment, asking them to keep shopping the way they always have. Which approach wins will depend less on the announcement itself than on whether people find the controls easy to use and whether the returns promise holds up when an agent makes a mistake.
Questions and answers
What is Walmart's Agent Gateway?
The Agent Gateway is Walmart's new MCP server, which lets approved AI agents connect to Walmart, search its online inventory and make purchases for the agent's user. Walmart says it can help customers buy their usual brands without sharing personal information or purchase history directly with the agent.
How will Walmart customers control what AI agents buy?
Customers will get Agent Profiles, rolling out next month, which give each agent its own profile in their account. They can require approval for every transaction or let the agent buy within a spending limit they set, and they can delete a profile at any time.
Why is Amazon blocking AI agents while Walmart welcomes them?
The source reports that Amazon has begun blocking AI agents from making purchases on behalf of online shoppers, while Walmart has taken the opposite approach. Walmart has already announced a partnership with Meta's Muse and offers integrations with ChatGPT and Gemini.
Do Walmart+ members need a membership to use AI shopping agents?
No. Walmart says agent support is available to anyone with a Walmart account, and a Walmart+ membership is not necessary.
Topics: Walmart, Amazon, AI agents, Agentic commerce, Model context protocol, Agent Gateway, John Furner, Sam's Club
Sources: TechCrunch AI
https://axynewsglobal.com/article/walmart-opens-its-site-to-ai-shopping-agents-as-amazon-blocks-them