Walmart opens its store to AI agents with their own profiles and a gateway

What's new

Walmart CEO John Furner unveiled three new tools for AI agents on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco. An AI agent is a program that can act on your behalf, for example by finding a product and buying it.

The first is agent profiles. Each agent gets its own profile under the customer's Walmart account, so the agent's purchases are kept separate from the customer's own orders. The profiles roll out over the coming month and work with any Walmart account, even without a Walmart+ membership. They cover both Walmart.com and Sam's Club.

The second is Agent Gateway, a so-called MCP server (model context protocol), essentially a standardized door that approved agents can walk through. It launches as a limited-access beta, by invitation only. The third is a new set of terms for agents.

What's smart

The customer stays in control. With an agent profile, you can require approval for every purchase or set a spending limit, for example $50, $100 or $200. The profile can be deleted, and permissions can be revoked at any time.

The gateway lets agents search inventory and buy without direct access to personal data or purchase history. According to Unite.AI, it provides real-time data on products and delivery, so the agent doesn't have to scrape the website. This is meant to cut latency, token usage (tokens are chunks of text that AI models read and write) and the number of requests. There are also category restrictions, rate limits and security safeguards.

The terms require agents to act within the user's intent and retrieve only the data the task requires. They may not see payment card details or change payment methods, and they must disclose that they are automated systems. Violations can result in a block.

Cheaper or better?

The price of the tools themselves has not been disclosed, and the only amounts in the coverage are the examples of spending limits. According to Unite.AI, prices through agents must match those humans see on Walmart.com, and applicable offers and fees must be shown before purchase.

Compared with its competitors, Walmart is the open door. According to TechCrunch, Amazon has blocked AI agents from completing purchases. Walmart is also already connected to Muse (Meta's), ChatGPT, Gemini and its own assistant, Sparky.

On the AI side, Anthropic released reference designs, so-called blueprints, for shopping and retail agents built on Claude on September 2, 2026. Accenture, Mastercard, Visa and Shopify are early adopters.

What it's good for

The system suits people who want an AI assistant to handle the tedious shopping chores while still keeping tabs on the bill. A spending limit or an approval requirement makes it safe to try.

For companies building AI assistants, the gateway is an official way into Walmart's system instead of scraping the website. The offering is aimed at US customers, and the sources don't say whether it will come to Denmark or the EU.