BofA: Walmart well positioned for AI shopping agents

The Bank of America note lands as retailers split over how to treat AI shopping agents. Walmart has chosen integration: it works with multiple AI ecosystems, has built its own assistant called "Sparky", and partners with agents including Meta's Muse. Best Buy and Ulta are named as fellow Muse partners, suggesting a cluster of retailers willing to let outside agents into their commercial portals.

Others have taken the opposite route. Amazon has blocked Muse from making purchases on its site and prohibits other companies from deploying automated tools to shop. The note's logic is that blocking protects a retailer from ceding funnel control to another tech platform, but it also leaves the early habit-forming stage to rivals. Since most people currently use AI tools to research rather than to buy, the near-term sales risk from blocking may be limited, according to the note, while the strategic bet on openness is about positioning for later.

The unresolved question in the note is advertising. If screenless computers become the ones checking out, it remains unclear what happens to the advertising landscape, a business increasingly important to Walmart itself.