On 21 October 2026, Walmart announced three measures for AI agents that shop on behalf of its customers on Walmart.com and Sam's Club: Agent Profiles, a technical gateway called Walmart Agent Gateway, and terms of use specific to agents. According to the group's press release, an agent shopping on Walmart today logs in with the customer's credentials, and its orders are mixed with the person's, without any distinction. Walmart now intends to know which agents are entering, with what rights, and to cut off access to those that step out of line.
One profile per agent, a cap set by the customer
The Agent Profiles, which Walmart says will arrive "in the coming month", will give each authorised agent a separate profile within the customer's account. Its purchases will appear separately. The customer will choose between two regimes: approve each order, or let the agent buy under a cap that they set themselves. Walmart cites amounts of $50, $100 or $200.
The group compares the system to adding an additional cardholder to a credit card. The profile is created automatically the first time an agent goes through the gateway. The customer then links it to their account by logging into Walmart, and can delete it whenever they wish.
On prices, the release makes an explicit commitment: "we set the price of products, not of people". An agent will see the same prices as a human on Walmart.com, with offers and fees displayed before purchase, the group assures.
The MCP gateway, a merchant-governed entry point
Agents can currently browse the site like humans, following a path designed for clicks, a mode Walmart considers "slow and error-prone". The Walmart Agent Gateway, which routes agents through Sparky, Walmart's assistant, will give them access via MCP, the Model Context Protocol that Anthropic released as open source in November 2024 to connect AI assistants to data systems.
Through the gateway, Walmart will help the agent find the customer's usual purchases (sourdough bread, the preferred milk brand, according to the release's example) without passing on the full purchase history. Consumer data thus stays with the retailer, which, according to Walmart, will only deliver what the task needs.
As of 22 October, the gateway presentation page describes it as an early beta programme, with limited access, invitation-only and subject to suspension at any time. It promises verified identities, controlled permissions, rate limits and category restrictions. No agent publisher is named as a partner; the release states that the beta is aimed first at businesses and developers.
Terms of use that allocate responsibility
The third element is contractual. The new rules require purchase approval by default, and Walmart reserves the right to demand additional validations even within the granted cap. An agent must not act beyond the buyer's intent, only accesses information necessary for the task and authorised by the customer, never receives card data and cannot add or modify a payment method.
The question of liability gets a partial answer. Walmart says its returns procedure applies, "including if an agent does not act as expected". For data, two privacy policies coexist: the agent publisher's covers what the customer entrusts to it, Walmart's covers what the agent transmits to the retailer.
Agents that do not comply with these terms will be blocked from the site, Walmart warns.
Amazon chose the legal route
In a statement published on its site, Amazon says third-party apps that buy on behalf of customers must "operate openly" and respect a merchant's decision to participate or not. It says it has repeatedly asked Perplexity to remove Amazon from the experience of its agentic browser Comet.
On 4 November 2025, Amazon sued Perplexity in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. According to the case docket, Judge Maxine M. Chesney granted Amazon a preliminary injunction on 9 March 2026. Perplexity appealed the next day, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the injunction on 4 August 2026, sending the case back to the lower court. A Perplexity motion to dismiss Amazon's amended complaint is set to be heard on 20 November 2026.
Both groups make the same demand: an agent that buys must be identified. Amazon defended it through cease-and-desist letters and then litigation, with an outcome still uncertain nearly a year later. Walmart translates it into infrastructure and contract, offering agents faster access than the browser in exchange for identification.
The merchant as de facto regulator
The release mentions no law or authority. Without waiting for a legal framework specific to AI-delegated purchasing, Walmart is writing the rules that will apply on its own turf: consent by default, caps, minimisation of transmitted data, exclusion of recalcitrant agents. For agent publishers, access to the retailer's shelves will go through its gateway and its terms.
This model adds to the conversational integrations already in place, which Walmart lists: its assistant Sparky and integrations with Muse, ChatGPT and Gemini, among others. The partnership with OpenAI, announced on 14 October 2025, already provided for purchasing within ChatGPT via Instant Checkout. Ultimately, the novelty lies in opening up to third-party agents outside any partnership; during the beta, access remains by invitation.
Several unknowns remain. The profiles are not yet available, the gateway remains invitation-only, and Walmart cites safeguards without detailing how it will identify non-compliant agents, or which agents are admitted to the beta. The first milestone is dated: Agent Profiles are due within a month, according to Walmart. On 20 November, the California courts will again take up the dispute between Amazon and Perplexity.
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