IT Home, October 22 — On Wednesday local time, Walmart announced the official launch of its own agent gateway to process transactions, along with several new features designed for consumers using AI agents, as it moves into agent-based e-commerce. Shortly before this, Walmart’s top competitor, Amazon, began blocking AI agents from placing orders on behalf of online shoppers.
IT Home notes that Walmart’s openness to AI technology sets it apart from other online retailers. While many travel and booking websites have chosen to block AI agents outright in response to the growing trend of consumers using AI agents, Walmart has already announced a partnership with Meta’s Muse, a leading AI agent in the field, and has integrated popular AI applications such as ChatGPT and Gemini.
John Furner, President and CEO of Walmart, said on Wednesday at the Masters of Scale summit in San Francisco that Walmart is now increasing its investment in related technologies to prepare for the era of widespread AI agents, which will support intelligent shopping for both Walmart and its membership warehouse club, Sam’s Club.
At its core is Walmart’s new agent gateway, a dedicated MCP server designed to allow approved agents to connect to Walmart’s platform via the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Originally developed by Anthropic, this protocol enables AI agents to interface with external data sources, tools, and workflows. In this use case, AI agents can retrieve Walmart’s online inventory and place orders on behalf of users.
In addition, the retailer stated that through the agent gateway, consumers can purchase commonly used brands or products without directly providing their personal information and purchase history to AI agents.
Walmart has also developed new technology to distinguish between orders placed by agents and those initiated directly by users, allowing shoppers to manage the operational permissions of their agents.
The Agent Profiles feature, launching next month, allows users to create separate authorization profiles for each AI agent they use within their account, enabling them to view orders generated by each agent individually. Users can also set their own order approval rules: they can require manual confirmation for every transaction, or set a spending limit to automatically authorize orders within that limit.
Walmart explains that this permission control system is similar to adding an authorized user to a credit card, allowing transactions to be identified and spending limits to be set.
The company explains that when a user first uses an agent via the Walmart Agent Gateway to make a purchase, the system generates a corresponding agent profile. The process involves first authorizing the agent, linking the agent profile to the Walmart account, then setting permissions or spending limits; users can also delete their agent profile at any time. Access to Walmart account features is sufficient to use agent-related functions—no Walmart+ membership is required.
In addition to the above technologies, Walmart has specifically introduced terms of service for AI agents, clearly defining their operational guidelines and permissions to conduct transactions on the platform. Notably, Walmart states that even if an AI agent makes an error, the platform’s return policy still applies. This consumer-friendly policy is expected to alleviate concerns among early adopters of AI-driven e-commerce, assuring them they won’t be stuck with unwanted items due to agent mistakes.
Walmart also stipulates that agents must not perform actions beyond the user's intent, cannot access the user's payment information, and may only obtain the information necessary to complete the current task. Agents that violate these terms will be prohibited from accessing the Walmart website.