Walmart opens its site to shopping agents with spending limits

Walmart says that next month shoppers can link their own AI agent to its website, and the company will also let customers shop with agents on Sam's Club. Each agent gets its own Agent Profile inside the customer's account. By default, every agent purchase needs the shopper's approval, but a budget, such as up to $100, lets the agent buy on its own within that limit.

Walmart has published terms for agents. They must not take actions beyond what the shopper intends, cannot change a customer's payment method, and may only access information needed for the task. Walmart says it will block agents that break these terms. Agents connect through an Agent Gateway built on the Model Context Protocol, which Walmart says avoids the problems agents can run into when navigating a browser and keeps shopping history and personal details out of their reach.

Shoppers can review agent purchases separately from their own in Agent Profiles and turn an agent off at any time. The move contrasts with Amazon, which has blocked Perplexity's shopping agent and Meta's Muse AI assistant.

Developers building shopping agents for Walmart will need to connect through MCP and work within the approval and budget controls instead of driving the site through a browser. Agents that act beyond the shopper's intent or try to change payment methods risk being blocked. Agents should request only the data a task needs, since Walmart withholds the broader shopping history.