Walmart Agent Gateway lets shoppers cap what AI agents spend. Amazon blocks them

Walmart has opened an official entry point for AI shopping agents. Chief executive John Furner announced Walmart Agent Gateway on October 21 at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, TechCrunch reported. It is an MCP server, a standard connection that lets approved AI agents search Walmart’s stock and place orders for a customer.

Shoppers decide what each agent may do. They can require approval for every purchase, or let the agent buy on its own up to a spending limit they set. They can also cut an agent off at any time. Walmart compares this to adding an authorised user to a credit card. The service covers Walmart and Sam’s Club, and no Walmart+ membership is needed.

Walmart Agent Profiles arrive in November

From next month, each agent gets its own profile inside the customer’s account. Its orders show up separately from the ones the customer places. The profile is created the first time the agent shops, and the customer can delete it.

Walmart has also set rules for the agents. They may not go beyond what the shopper asked for, may not see payment details and may use only the data a task needs. Agents that break the rules will be blocked. Normal returns apply even when an agent buys the wrong thing.

Amazon shut out Meta’s Muse less than two weeks after launch

Amazon has gone the other way. It blocked Meta’s shopping agent Muse from browsing and buying on its site, Axios reported. Amazon says it never allowed Muse to access accounts, collect data or process orders. Retail analyst Neil Saunders told Axios that Amazon may fear agents could hurt its advertising business.

Walmart already works with Muse and offers links to ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI apps. Other platforms are opening up too: Shopify lets AI agents place orders at checkout in stores that use Shop Pay.

Only 16% of shoppers would let an AI assistant buy for them

Demand is still small. Only 16% of shoppers are comfortable letting an AI assistant buy on their behalf, Axios wrote, citing Coveo’s 2026 Commerce Relevance Report.

The first real test comes in November, when Agent Profiles go live. Will shoppers give agents a spending limit, or approve every order one by one? Walmart has not said whether it will share how many agents connect.