Walmart is opening its doors to AI shopping agents, with spending limits you set.

On Wednesday, Oct 21, Walmart said it will let AI agents shop at Walmart and Sam's Club on a customer's behalf, and it announced three pieces to make that work (Walmart). The first is Agent Profiles, launching in the next month. Today an agent signs in as you, so its orders are mixed in with yours. With a profile, each agent you use gets its own spot inside your account, so you can see what it bought. You choose whether it needs your OK for every purchase or can buy on its own up to a limit you set, for example $50, $100 or $200, and you can delete the profile at any time. Walmart compares it to adding someone as a cardholder on your credit card.

The second is the Walmart Agent Gateway, a connection built on MCP, the standard many AI apps use to plug into outside services. It lets agents search and buy directly instead of clicking through a website made for people, and it starts as a beta for companies and developers. Walmart says the gateway can help an agent find your usual items, like a certain brand of milk, without handing the agent your shopping history. The third is a set of rules for agents. Purchases need your approval by default, agents never get your card details and can't add or change payment methods, Walmart's normal returns apply even when an agent gets something wrong, and agents that break the rules get blocked.

Walmart also says agents see the same prices people see on Walmart.com. TechCrunch notes the move comes as Amazon has started blocking AI agents from buying on behalf of shoppers, and that you won't need a Walmart+ membership to use an agent (TechCrunch).

When you'll feel it: Agent Profiles are due within the next month, and the gateway starts with companies and developers, so most people won't see this right away. Once it's live, you start from inside the agent's own app, and Walmart creates the profile the first time that agent shops for you. Walmart already has shopping tie-ins with Muse, ChatGPT and Gemini. If you let an agent shop for you, start with per-purchase approval or a low spending limit until you trust how it picks things.