Walmart Plans AI Agent Profiles With Purchase Approvals and Spending Caps

Walmart plans to let shoppers authorize AI agents to place orders under spending limits or require approval for each purchase, giving customers control over how the software shops on their behalf. The company announced its Agent Profiles on Oct. 21 and expects them to arrive in November.

Each profile will show an agent’s orders separately from a customer’s other purchases, making it possible to distinguish transactions placed by software. Shoppers can choose to approve each order or allow purchases within a set limit. Walmart lists $50, $100 and $200 as examples, and customers can turn a profile off or delete it.

Approval is the default. Walmart can also ask a customer to approve a purchase even when it falls within the selected limit. Agents will not have access to payment-card details or be able to change a customer’s payment method. Customers can return items if an agent makes an incorrect purchase.

The profiles will be part of Walmart’s broader effort to connect shopping agents to its systems. Its Agent Gateway is planned to start with a beta for companies and developers. The gateway will use Model Context Protocol (MCP), a standard that lets AI applications connect to external systems. Walmart lists Meta’s Muse, ChatGPT and Gemini among its conversational-commerce integrations.

Amazon took a more restrictive step in September, blocking Meta’s Muse from shopping on Amazon.com. A warning shown to Muse users said an unauthorized AI agent violated Amazon’s Conditions of Use. The contrast is in how the retailers handle outside agents: Walmart is preparing a route with customer-set permissions, while Amazon blocked Muse from its site.

Shopify has also expanded access to its catalog for AI shopping agents. Its checkout options let shoppers approve purchases individually or set weekly, monthly or total spending limits in Shopify’s agent-shopping expansion. Walmart has not given a specific November launch date for Agent Profiles or a date for the Agent Gateway beta.