Walmart now lets AI agents shop for its customers
and where your Shopify store fits
Last week, Walmart laid out how AI agents can shop its store for a shopper.
They announced three things.
Agent Profiles - each agent gets its own profile inside a shopper's Walmart account
Agent Gateway - agents shop through MCP instead of clicking through the website
Terms - what agents can and can't do on Walmart
Source: Walmart
Two weeks ago I shared how Amazon blocked Meta's shopping agent for not saying it was an agent. Walmart went the other way and wrote rules for letting agents in.
What Walmart lets an agent do
The shopper sets how much the agent can buy on its own. They can approve every purchase or set a limit like $50, $100 or $200.
Purchases the agent makes show up separately from the shopper's own.
Walmart says agents see the same prices a person sees on Walmart.com, with offers and fees shown before purchase.
The terms cover the rest.
Agents can't go beyond what the shopper intends
Agents get no card details and can't change how the shopper pays
Walmart's normal returns apply, even when an agent gets an order wrong
An agent that breaks the terms gets blocked
Profiles launch within the next month.
The gateway starts as a beta for companies and developers.
Why the website is the slow way in
Today, agents shop Walmart's site through a browser, following steps built for people. Walmart says that's slow and agents can get stuck.
The gateway gives them a faster route. It can also find a shopper's usual items, like a brand of milk, without handing the agent their purchase history.
Google's CEO said something similar in a recent podcast interview. He expects agents to reach sites both ways, by browsing pages and through protocols. He called protocols "a far more scalable approach" but said they'll take longer to build.
Where a Shopify store fits
Walmart built its own gateway. Shopify built one that covers every Shopify store.
Earlier this month I shared how any AI agent can now shop Shopify stores with Shop Pay. The shopper's agent searches Shopify Catalog and builds the cart. It places the order only after the shopper confirms the total and the payment method.
On a store, the agent's way in and the shopper's sign-off are handled by Shopify.
What you control is which AI channels sell your products, under Sales channels > Agentic. Orders from those channels show up in your admin.
Source: Shopify admin
The other thing you control is what an agent finds when it compares you with a retailer.
I asked ChatGPT where to buy Graza's Drizzle olive oil. I ran it twice.
Both times it listed the brand's own store first, as the best place to start. It pointed to the squeeze bottles, glass bottles and refill cans the brand sells. Target and Walmart came next with a single bottle each.
Source: ChatGPT
My read is that an agent with a $50 limit can buy a single bottle from any of them. What points it to your store is the range only you carry. It learns about that range from your product data.
Four checks before agents compare your store
1/ Go to Sales channels > Agentic and see which AI channels your products sell on.
2/ In Orders, filter by Channel to see which orders came from AI channels. ChatGPT orders check out on your online store, so look for them by referrer.
3/ Ask ChatGPT where to buy your best seller. See whether your store comes up and what it says you carry.
4/ Set sizes, pack sizes and formats as product options with clear names, not only as words in a title. That's how an agent sees the full range you sell.
I recently connected with Claus Lauter, who runs Ecommerce Coffee Break, a newsletter covering what's happening across ecommerce.
With BFCM approaching, there's a lot to keep up with. Claus does a great job of picking out the news, ideas and practical insights worth paying attention to.
He sends it twice a week, covering ecommerce trends, marketing and growth.
An agent picks a store from what its products say.
The Shopify Catalog audit shows whether an agent would pick your store over other Shopify stores for the same shopper query. Audit now →
Atomz AI fills in category attributes across your catalog, so an agent sees everything your store carries. Get in touch for a demo.
- Ankit
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