Walmart is making a significant push into the evolving landscape of agentic commerce by announcing the launch of its own proprietary Agent Gateway designed to manage transactions and introduce new features tailored specifically for customers using artificial intelligence agents. The major retail announcement, revealed on Wednesday, positions Walmart in stark contrast to several other prominent online businesses and booking sites that have recently responded to the rising consumer adoption of AI agents by locking them out of their websites entirely.
The move comes only a short while after Walmart’s top competitor, Amazon, began blocking AI agents from making purchases on behalf of online shoppers. While Amazon and various travel and booking portals view autonomous shopping bots as a potential security risk or a disruption to their traditional user experiences, Walmart is actively leaning into the trend. The retail giant had previously announced a high-profile partnership with a leading agent in the space, Meta’s Muse, and currently offers integrations with several popular AI applications, including ChatGPT and Google Gemini.
Speaking at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday, Walmart President and CEO John Furner explained that the company is expanding on those early efforts with robust new technology to prepare for a future where AI agents become a mainstream method for consumers to shop. According to Furner, this new infrastructure will support agentic shopping across both the core Walmart retail operations and the company’s discount warehouse division, Sam’s Club.
At the center of this new strategy is Walmart’s Agent Gateway, which functions as the company’s new Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. Designed to help approved agents connect securely to Walmart, the system utilizes the Model Context Protocol, a standard originally created by Anthropic that allows AI agents to interface seamlessly with external data sources, specialized tools, and complex workflows. In practical terms, this protocol enables an authorized AI agent to search comprehensively across Walmart’s vast online inventory and execute purchases securely on behalf of the agent’s human user.
Crucially, the retailer emphasizes that the Agent Gateway is engineered with privacy in mind. The system will help customers shop efficiently for their regular brands and everyday items without requiring them to share their sensitive personal information or complete purchase histories directly with the third-party AI agents they utilize.
To further manage this new paradigm of shopping, Walmart has developed dedicated technology designed to clearly differentiate purchases initiated by an autonomous agent from those made directly by a human customer. This layer of infrastructure aims to give shoppers unprecedented oversight and control over what their AI assistants can and cannot do on their behalf.
As part of this rollout, a feature called Agent Profiles will debut next month. This capability will allow customers to authorize every individual AI agent they use by creating a dedicated profile within their main Walmart account. Through this dashboard, shoppers will be able to review and track purchases made by an agent completely separately from their own personal shopping history. Furthermore, customers will maintain absolute authority over how transactions are approved, choosing either to require manual confirmation for every single purchase or to authorize transactions automatically within a predefined spending limit set by the user.
Walmart notes that these built-in financial controls function similarly to adding an authorized user to a traditional credit card account, where distinct transactions are clearly identified and overall spending can be capped to prevent unexpected charges.
An Agent Profile is automatically generated the very first time a shopper uses a specific AI agent to browse and purchase through the Walmart Agent Gateway. To begin the process, users authorize and link the new Agent Profile to their existing Walmart account, configure their preferred security controls and spending limits, and retain the flexibility to delete any Agent Profile at any given time. Walmart has clarified that agent support will be available to anyone with a standard Walmart account, meaning that a paid Walmart+ membership is not required to utilize the feature.
Alongside these technical integrations, Walmart is establishing specialized operational terms specifically for AI agents. These guidelines dictate exactly how bots must behave and outline the precise rights they possess to execute transactions on the retailer’s digital platform. Of notable importance to early adopters, Walmart has confirmed that its standard returns policy will fully apply to agent-driven purchases, even in scenarios where an AI agent fails to act as intended or makes a mistake.
Industry analysts point out that this customer-friendly condition could prove pivotal in convincing hesitant consumers to try agentic commerce. By removing the fear of being stuck with unwanted products due to a misbehaving or misunderstanding AI agent, Walmart is effectively lowering the psychological barrier to entry for automated shopping.
The newly established terms also enforce strict behavioral boundaries. Walmart stipulates that AI agents cannot take autonomous actions that exceed the clear intentions of the shopper, are strictly barred from accessing the customer’s underlying payment information, and are restricted to accessing only the data that is genuinely required to complete a specific assigned task. The company has made it clear that any AI agent found violating these mandatory terms will be promptly blocked from accessing Walmart’s digital storefront.
