Walmart Adds Agent Profiles for AI Shopping Agents

Walmart wants AI agents to shop on its site, but on its terms. The retailer said on 21 October that it is introducing Agent Profiles, a Walmart Agent Gateway and a set of written rules for AI agents that buy things for customers, covering both Walmart and its warehouse club, Sam’s Club. The aim, it says in its announcement, is to let customers use “the apps and agents they choose, with clear permissions, controls and protections built in”.

The timing stands out. The move comes shortly after Amazon, Walmart’s biggest rival, began blocking AI agents from making purchases for shoppers, TechCrunch reports. Walmart already sells through conversational integrations with Meta’s Muse, ChatGPT, Gemini and others, as well as its own assistant, Sparky.

A profile for each agent

At present, an agent that shops at Walmart signs in with the customer’s own account, so its purchases are mixed in with everything else. Agent Profiles, which Walmart says are “launching in the next month”, give each authorised agent its own profile inside the customer’s account, with its orders listed separately.

Customers then choose how much freedom to give it. They can require approval for every purchase, or let the agent buy within a spending limit they set, “for example, $50, $100 or $200”. Walmart compares this to adding a cardholder to a credit card. A profile is created the first time an agent shops through the Gateway, is linked when the customer signs in to Walmart, and can be deleted at any time. TechCrunch says a Walmart+ membership is not needed.

Walmart also promises that agents will not get worse deals, or better ones. “We price products, not people,” it says, so an agent sees the same prices as a human on Walmart.com.

A gateway built for machines

Agents today tend to click through Walmart’s website like a person would, which the company calls slow and error-prone. The Agent Gateway is meant to replace that with a direct connection over the Model Context Protocol, the open standard for linking AI agents to outside tools that Anthropic created, as TechCrunch notes. It will start as a beta for companies and developers. Walmart has not said when it will open more widely, or which agents will be first.

One promised feature is privacy-minded. If a customer usually buys sourdough bread or a particular brand of milk, Walmart says the Gateway will help the agent find those usual items without handing over the customer’s wider shopping history.

The rules agents must follow

The terms are the most concrete part. Walmart’s returns process applies “including if an agent doesn’t act as intended”, so a shopper is not stuck with something an agent bought by mistake. Purchases need the customer’s approval by default, and Walmart may ask for extra approval even within a spending limit. Agents may not act beyond what the shopper intends, and may see only the information a task needs.

Agents also “don’t receive customers’ payment-card information” and cannot add or change payment methods. The agent maker’s privacy policy covers what it collects, while Walmart’s covers what the agent passes to Walmart. Agents that break the rules “will be blocked from Walmart’s site”.

Two approaches to agent shopping

TechCrunch notes that Amazon is not alone in shutting agents out. Various travel and booking sites have done the same. Walmart’s bet is that agents will become mainstream and that it is better to set the rules than to fight them. Chief executive John Furner presented the plan at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, according to TechCrunch.

How well it works will depend on details Walmart has yet to share, including which agents join the Gateway beta and how often its extra approval checks interrupt a purchase. The first test comes when Agent Profiles reach customers’ accounts within the month.