What happened
Walmart will debut "Agent Profiles" sometime in the next month, letting customers hold dedicated profiles within their account for an AI agent, per a Wednesday announcement.
Why it matters
The feature gives shoppers control over agent purchases—either requiring approval for each transaction or setting a spending limit—addressing transparency and personal-information protection concerns, according to the announcement.
WHO IT HITSWalmart customers using AI shopping agents will gain granular control over delegated purchases, while third-party developers and companies building shopping agents will be able to connect via the beta Agent Gateway without handling sensitive customer data.
Summaries like this, every morning.
Walmart's move builds on its existing agentic AI work: it was one of the first major retailers to integrate purchasing with OpenAI's ChatGPT and joined forces with Google's Gemini earlier this year, and it has continued to tout the success of its Sparky AI assistant since launching in 2025. The new Agent Profiles and Agent Gateway extend that strategy by opening Walmart's systems to external AI agents while keeping shoppers in control.
The approach contrasts with Amazon, which has sought to stop agents from Perplexity and Meta from shopping through Amazon on behalf of customers. Walmart U.S. Executive Vice President of E-commerce and Marketing Tracy Poulliot said keeping customers in control of their AI commerce experiences is key, adding that the company points technology at problems that create meaningful value for the customer rather than pursuing technology for its own sake.
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