Retail Giants Split on AI Agents: Walmart Opens Doors While Amazon Tightens Restrictions

Walmart is rolling out a framework to welcome artificial intelligence shopping agents onto its platform, even as Amazon blocks competitors' AI assistants from making purchases on its site—a fundamental divergence in how the retail giants approach the era of autonomous shopping. Walmart announced its new Agent Gateway this week, a system based on the model context protocol that allows approved AI agents like Meta's Muse to facilitate purchases on behalf of customers without accessing their payment information directly. Customers will soon be able to create dedicated agent profiles with spending limits and per-transaction approval controls, similar to authorized credit card users. The retailer emphasized that agents cannot change payment methods or take actions beyond the customer's stated intent. In contrast, Amazon began blocking AI shopping agents in September after declining requests from external companies to remove their bots from its platform. The e-commerce company cited security and authorization concerns, alleging that Muse accessed its store without permission and captured customer login credentials. Meta disputed the credential-storage claim but declined Amazon's removal request, leading to automated blocks on the Muse agent.