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Walmart Invites AI Agents to Shop for You
Confirmed
In Short: Walmart is allowing artificial intelligence agents to shop on its website, creating a dedicated profile for each agent within a customer's account.
Walmart announced on October 21, 2026, that it will allow artificial intelligence agents to shop on its website, creating a dedicated profile for each agent within a customer's account.
The retailer's new initiative includes the Walmart Agent Gateway, a platform that allows AI assistants such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Meta’s Muse to connect directly with Walmart and Sam’s Club systems to search products and complete purchases.
According to Walmart, all purchases made by the customer or the agent will appear together in the customer's account, without any differentiation.
The company also introduced special terms for AI agents, specifying how they must operate and what rights they have to transact on its site.
Walmart said it will roll out 'Agent Profiles' next month, enabling shoppers to authorize individual AI agents, track their purchases separately, and set spending limits or require approval for each transaction.
The retailer's stated goal is to make its experience the most trusted by building clear controls and protections into the experience from the start.
Walmart's embrace of AI technology differentiates it from other online businesses, including Amazon, which has sought to limit third-party AI shopping agents' access to its platform.
The company's Agent Gateway will help customers shop for their usual brands or items without having to share their personal information or purchase history directly with the agent.
Walmart CEO John Furner detailed this shift at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, noting that the retailer aims to let an agent shop a customer’s usual items without the customer handing over their broader purchase history or personal data.
The move underscores Walmart’s push into AI-enabled shopping, and strikes a contrast with Amazon, which has sought to limit third-party AI shopping agents’ access to its platform.
The company’s terms for AI agents are live today, but the profiles and the gateway behind them are not yet available for public use.
Walmart is not offering an open-ended invitation; it is offering a controlled environment with Walmart holding the switch.
What this adds
Walmart's new initiative stands in stark contrast to Amazon's approach, which recently blocked Perplexity’s shopping agent and Meta’s Muse AI assistant.
The industry divide in agentic commerce has sharpened into a concrete split, with Walmart attempting to standardize AI agent access while Amazon has begun blocking them.
Recent industry data suggests that while 67% of retailers plan to open their catalogs to agents within two years, the structured data readiness agents actually need remains a challenge.
Walmart's pilot data put direct agent checkouts at roughly one-third the conversion of click-outs, highlighting the retailer's focus on improving the efficiency of AI-assisted shopping.
Background
Walmart announced on October 21, 2026, that it will allow artificial intelligence agents to shop on its website, creating a dedicated profile for each agent within a customer's account.
Walmart's embrace of AI agents stands in stark contrast to Amazon's approach, which recently blocked Perplexity’s shopping agent and Meta’s Muse AI assistant.
What's confirmed
- The post, published on the Walmart corporate newsroom without a named author, describes a dedicated profile for each agent inside a customer's account, optional spending limits, a faster machine-to-machine route for agents and a rule that agents which break the terms will be blocked from Walmart's site.
- Walmart on October 21, 2026, set out three pieces of infrastructure for artificial intelligence agents that shop for its customers: Agent Profiles, the Walmart Agent Gateway and a set of terms that agents must follow on Walmart and Sam's Club.
- Walmart lists the places it already sells: stores and clubs, online shopping, pickup and delivery, and "Sparky and conversational commerce integrations with Muse, ChatGPT, Gemini and others." Sparky is Walmart's own shopping assistant.
What's still developing
- In January 2026, the advocacy group Groundwork argued that Google's agentic shopping standard could enable what it called a "surveillance pricing squeeze", a claim Google rejected as inaccurate on January 13.
- Walmart's gateway lets Meta's Muse, ChatGPT, and Gemini buy groceries and goods directly, while a federal judge just ordered Perplexity's Comet to stop shopping on Amazon and delete the data it collected.
- "with the Amazon user's permission, but without authorization by Amazon."
- The Ninth Circuit vacated a preliminary injunction that had barred Perplexity's Comet browser agent from shopping on Amazon accounts: it ruled that it is the user, not Perplexity, who accesses Amazon's site when the agent acts on their behalf.
- An AI assistant that gets stonewalled trying to buy a toaster on Amazon will simply route the purchase to Walmart instead, no debate required.
- MCP, short for Model Context Protocol, is the connector standard Anthropic built so AI agents can reach outside tools and data sources without needing a custom integration for every site.
- Walmart is embracing agentic commerce with the launch of its own Agent Gateway to manage transactions and other new features aimed at customers using AI agents, the retailer announced on Wednesday.
- The tools instilled confidence in the “experimental” shopping process of agentic purchases, said Mizuho analyst David Bellinger in a note.
- But Walmart is opening its doors to AI shoppers — as long as they follow the retailer’s rules.
- The announcement puts Walmart on the opposite side from its largest competitor.
- It is also a step further than Walmart went in March, when it moved to Sparky on ChatGPT after calling sales through ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout disappointing.
- From 21 September, Amazon blocked Meta’s Muse agent from shopping Amazon.com, telling users that an unauthorized AI agent violates its Conditions of Use.
Sources
- Forkast Newslink
- PPC Landlink
- Startup Fortunelink
- TechCrunchlink
- The Indian Expresslink
- The Vergelink
- https://www.thekeyword.co/link
- WarpBeat — background on Walmart Invites AI Agents to Shop for Customers link
- WarpBeat — background on Walmart Embraces AI Agents as Amazon Blocks Them link
- KNWA-FOX24 — video link