Walmart announced on Wednesday that it is opening its online store to AI shopping agents, a sharp contrast with Amazon, which has begun blocking them. TechCrunch's Sarah Perez reported the launch on October 21.
What Walmart launched
The centerpiece is Agent Gateway, a model context protocol server, a standard originally created by Anthropic, that lets approved AI agents connect to Walmart. Agents can search online inventory and buy items for the user. Walmart says the gateway can help shoppers reorder usual brands without sharing personal information or purchase history with the agent. It covers Walmart and Sam's Club and is available to anyone with a Walmart account, with no Walmart+ membership required.
Controls for shoppers
Agent Profiles, rolling out next month, give each agent a dedicated profile in the customer's account so its purchases appear separately. Customers can require approval for every transaction or pre-authorize purchases under a spending limit. Profiles are created on first use and can be deleted at any time. The article cites no specific spending-limit amounts.
Rules for agents
Walmart says its returns process applies even when an agent does not act as intended. Agents cannot exceed the shopper's intent, cannot access payment information and can access only the data a task requires. Agents that do not comply will be blocked. Walmart already has partnerships with Meta's Muse and integrations with ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI apps.
The Amazon contrast
TechCrunch says Amazon has begun blocking AI agents from buying on behalf of online shoppers, and links to a September report on Meta's agent being blocked from Amazon.com. Various travel and booking sites have locked agents out entirely. Walmart is taking the opposite approach. Walmart President and CEO John Furner spoke about the plans at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, though his remarks are paraphrased in the article and not quoted. The report contains no statistics.
Source: TechCrunch. This is an AI Business Watch summary of the original report.