Walmart announced on Wednesday the launch of its Agent Gateway to manage transactions and support agentic commerce, contrasting sharply with competitor Amazon, which recently began blocking AI agents from online shopping. Speaking at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, Walmart President and CEO John Furner detailed the new technology designed to prepare for mainstream AI shopping across Walmart and Sam’s Club.
The company's Agent Gateway uses a Model Context Protocol server, originally created by Anthropic, allowing approved AI agents to connect to Walmart, search inventory, and make purchases without accessing users' personal information or purchase history directly. Additionally, Walmart is introducing Agent Profiles next month to let customers track agent transactions separately and set spending limits or approval requirements, operating similarly to an authorized user on a credit card.
Alongside these systems, Walmart established operating terms for AI agents and applied standard return policies to address consumer concerns about misbehaving agents. This proactive infrastructure enables secure, consumer-controlled AI shopping while non-compliant agents face bans.
Why it matters: Walmart is positioning itself at the forefront of retail by welcoming AI shopping assistants while competitors like Amazon block them.