Walmart Agent Profiles allows third-party AI agents (autonomous AI-powered assistants) to independently search for products and make purchases on the user’s behalf
Major US retailer has just introduced a new feature of the agentic commerce ecosystem. Agentic shopping is now available for Walmart’s online store and Sam’s Club warehouse club chain.
The new solution that enables trusted AI agents to shop on behalf of human customers consists of two components: Agent Profiles (provides user control) and Agent Gateway (a technical bridge for AI agents). The bridge is initially launched in beta for AI companies and developers, allowing them to optimize their agents for the retailer’s product catalog.
The gateway integrates with approved leading AI agents and assistants, including ChatGPT (OpenAI), Gemini (Google), Muse (Meta), and Claude (Anthropic). Users must sign in to their Walmart accounts to authorize and link a specific AI assistant to their profiles. A profile is created automatically the first time a user employs an approved AI agent to shop through Walmart.
Users have robust control options. They can:
- Require confirmation for every transaction (enabled by default).
- Set a spending limit, allowing AI agents to purchase items autonomously up to a specified amount, e.g. $50, $100, or $200.
- Delete an agent’s profile at any time, immediately revoking its access.
If an AI agent makes a mistake and orders the wrong item, Walmart’s standard return policy applies to the transaction in full. Agents that violate the platform’s rules are blocked.
“We’ve always worked to understand what customers need and make shopping easier for them. As customers begin using agents to help them shop, we’re building connections, permissions and options that complement those tools and support how customers want to use them. It’s just another way we’re living our commitment to serve customers and earn the trust they place in us every day,” said the company in the announcement.
The company claims AI agents do not have direct access to clients’ payment details and cannot change their select payment methods. Walmart also aims to keep customers’ full purchase history hidden from AI. For example, if you regularly buy a particular brand of milk, the system can help the agent find that specific product without revealing the rest of your order history.
Instead of making AI mimic human behavior like clicking website buttons through a browser, Walmart’s gateway, based on Anthropic’s open Model Context Protocol (MCP), allows AI agents to interact directly with the retailer’s database through code.
Notably, Walmart’s strategy differs sharply from Amazon’s approach. In late 2025 and throughout 2026, Amazon began actively blocking third-party AI agents, including Perplexity and Meta Muse, seeking to keep customers within its own AI tools. Walmart, by contrast, is opening its platform to external AI assistants.
