Retail giant Walmart is diving headfirst into the era of agentic commerce, announcing the launch of its own proprietary Agent Gateway to seamlessly manage transactions and introduce a suite of new features tailored specifically for customers utilizing artificial intelligence agents. The major strategic move, revealed by Walmart leadership, positions the company in stark contrast to several industry rivals who have chosen to restrict or entirely block autonomous software agents from accessing their e-commerce platforms.
The announcement arrives closely on the heels of a contrasting move by Walmart’s chief competitor, Amazon, which recently began blocking Meta’s AI agents and other third-party software from making purchases on behalf of online shoppers. While Amazon, alongside various online travel and booking platforms, has responded to the surging adoption of consumer AI agents by locking them out of their web infrastructure entirely, Walmart is aggressively courting the technology. The retailer had previously announced a high-profile partnership with Meta’s Muse AI agent and already supports integrations with mainstream AI applications including ChatGPT and Gemini.
Expanding upon those foundational efforts, Walmart is deploying advanced technology to prepare for a retail landscape where autonomous AI agents become a mainstream method for conducting daily consumer transactions, according to Walmart President and CEO John Furner. Speaking at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, Furner detailed how the new technological infrastructure will support agentic shopping across both mainline Walmart operations and the company’s discount warehouse division, Sam’s Club.
At the core of this new rollout is Walmart’s Agent Gateway, built as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server. Originally created by Anthropic, the Model Context Protocol is designed to allow AI agents to securely connect to external data sources, specialized tools, and complex digital workflows. In Walmart’s implementation, the MCP server enables an approved AI agent to search comprehensively across Walmart’s vast online inventory and successfully execute purchases on behalf of the agent’s human user.
Crucially, the retail corporation emphasizes that the Agent Gateway is engineered with data privacy in mind. The system will enable customers to shop for their preferred brands, routine household goods, and everyday items without needing to share their sensitive personal information or complete purchase history directly with the underlying AI agent.
To further differentiate automated shopping from traditional human behavior, Walmart has engineered specialized technology designed to separate purchases initiated by an AI agent from those made directly by the customer. This distinction forms the backbone of a new suite of user controls aimed at giving shoppers granular oversight regarding what their AI agents are authorized to perform.
Rolling out next month, a feature called Agent Profiles will allow customers to officially authorize each AI agent they utilize by establishing a dedicated profile within their main Walmart account. Through this dedicated profile interface, shoppers will be able to view all agent-driven purchases completely separate from their personal transaction history. Furthermore, customers retain total administrative control over how purchases are officially approved, choosing either to require manual human approval for every individual transaction or to authorize automated transactions up to a designated spending limit established within the account settings.
Walmart leadership compares these built-in controls to the familiar financial mechanism of adding an authorized user to a credit card account, where secondary transactions are clearly identified and a strict spending cap can be enforced by the primary account holder.
These Agent Profiles are automatically initialized the very first time a consumer uses a specific AI agent to shop through the Walmart Agent Gateway. To begin utilizing the capability, a user simply authorizes and links the new Agent Profile directly to their existing Walmart account, establishes their desired security controls or financial spending limits, and retains the administrative ability to delete the Agent Profile at any given time. Walmart notes that agent support is being made available to any standard account holder, meaning a paid Walmart+ subscription is not required to access the feature.
Alongside these technological deployments, Walmart is introducing specialized operating terms specifically governing AI agents. These terms explicitly outline how autonomous agents must behave and define their legal and operational rights to conduct transactions on the retail platform. Notably, Walmart has confirmed that its standard customer returns process will fully apply to agentic commerce, including scenarios where an AI agent fails to act as intended or purchases incorrect items.
This customer-friendly policy is widely expected to ease lingering hesitations among consumers who might otherwise feel anxious about acting as early testers for agentic commerce. By ensuring that shoppers will not end up permanently stuck with unwanted products due to a misbehaving or malfunctioning AI agent, Walmart is removing a major psychological barrier to adoption.
Under the newly instituted terms, automated agents are strictly prohibited from taking any actions that exceed the explicit intentions of the human shopper. Additionally, the rules mandate that agents cannot access the customer’s underlying payment card information and must restrict their data access exclusively to the specific details required for the immediate task at hand. Walmart has made it clear that any AI agent found to be non-compliant with these operational terms will be swiftly blocked from accessing the company’s digital storefront.
