Walmart will let AI agents shop for customers on Walmart.com and at Sam’s Club, each with its own profile, spending limit and purchase history. The retailer announced Agent Profiles, a gateway built for agents and a set of terms they must follow on Wednesday.
Chief executive John Furner presented the plans at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, TechCrunch reported.
A profile for each agent
Today, an agent shopping at Walmart signs in with the customer’s own account, so its purchases are mixed in with the customer’s. Agent Profiles, due within the next month, give each agent a separate profile inside that account. Customers can approve every purchase or let the agent buy within a limit they set, such as $50, $100 or $200. They can delete a profile at any time.
“Think about it like adding someone as a cardholder on your credit card,” Walmart wrote.
Walmart creates the profile the first time a customer uses an agent through its gateway. The customer then links it by signing in to their Walmart account. A Walmart+ membership is not needed, TechCrunch reported.
A gateway built for agents
Agents now shop on Walmart’s site through a web browser, following steps designed for people. Walmart called that slow and error-prone. The Walmart Agent Gateway instead connects agents through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard that Anthropic first created to link AI agents to outside tools and data. It starts as a beta for companies and developers.
The gateway can also help an agent find a customer’s usual items, such as a favourite brand of milk, without handing over the customer’s wider shopping history, Walmart said.
The rules for agents
Under Walmart’s new terms, customers must approve agent purchases by default. Walmart may ask for more approvals even within a spending limit. Agents get no card details and cannot add or change payment methods. They may use only the information a task needs, and must not act beyond what the shopper intends.
Walmart’s returns process applies, including when an agent does not act as intended. Agents that break the terms will be blocked from the site.
Walmart said prices will not change for agents.
“We price products, not people, so the prices that an AI agent sees are the same prices that a human would see on Walmart.com, with applicable offers and fees shown before purchase,” Walmart wrote.
Furner ruled out personalised pricing in September. Lindsay Owens, who runs the Groundwork Collaborative, has accused Walmart of “sneaky pricing practices”, Axios reported. Walmart called her claims misleading and inaccurate.
Amazon took the other path
Walmart already sells through Meta’s Muse, ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI apps. Amazon blocked Meta’s Muse in September. It said it had not authorised Muse to access customer accounts, scrape data or process transactions, according to Axios. Schwab and JPMorgan have also blocked AI agents from moving their customers’ money.