Dive Brief:
- Walmart is betting more on agentic AI with the debut of “Agent Profiles” sometime in the next month, allowing customers to have dedicated profiles within their account for an AI agent, per a Wednesday announcement.
- Shoppers could require approval for purchases made by the agent or give the agent permission to make purchases within a spending limit they choose.
- Additionally, Walmart is building out an “Agent Gateway” with a beta rollout for companies and developers. Agent Gateway uses the open standard Model Context Protocol — allowing AI systems to connect with external services and data — and aims to let agents shop for a user without needing to share their personal information or purchase history with the agent.
Dive Insight:
Walmart’s latest agentic AI efforts solidify its approach to further develop relationships with external AI systems, in addition to building out its own AI agent.
The company was one of the first major retailers to integrate purchasing with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and joined forces with Google’s Gemini earlier this year. Additionally, Walmart has continued to tout the success of its Sparky AI assistant since launching in 2025.
The mass retailer’s Agent Profiles and Agent Gateway are particularly focused on expanding agentic AI while maintaining transparency for shoppers and protecting personal information.
The announcement Wednesday also includes updated terms for AI agents, which emphasize customer approval requirements for agents, prevent agents from receiving customers’ payment-card information and more.
The approach to external AI agents marks a stark difference from e-commerce giant Amazon, which has sought to stop agents from Perplexity and Meta from shopping through Amazon on behalf of customers.
Keeping customers in control of their AI commerce experiences is key, Walmart U.S. Executive Vice President of E-commerce and Marketing Tracy Poulliot said during the RetailClub AI Festival conference in California last month.
"It's really not just about technology for technology's sake,” Poulliot said about Walmart's approach to AI strategy. “It's pointing the technology at a problem that creates meaningful value for the customer.”
