While Amazon slams the door on AI shopping agents, Walmart is rolling out the welcome mat — and launching the infrastructure to prove it.
The retail giant has unveiled its own Agent Gateway to manage transactions made by AI agents, alongside new features aimed at customers who want AI assistants to shop on their behalf. The move, announced on Wednesday, comes shortly after Amazon began blocking AI agents from making purchases for online shoppers.
A New MCP Server for Agentic Commerce
The centerpiece is Walmart’s Agent Gateway, a new MCP (Model Context Protocol) server designed to let approved agents connect to Walmart using the open protocol originally created by Anthropic. MCP lets AI agents connect to external data sources and tools — and Walmart wants to be one of the easiest destinations for them to plug into.
Walmart President and CEO John Furner, speaking at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, said the technology is built for a future where AI agents become mainstream shopping tools. The system will support agentic shopping across both Walmart and its discount warehouse brand Sam’s Club.
A Deliberate Split From Amazon
Walmart’s embrace of AI agents deliberately sets it apart — not just from Amazon, but from a wave of travel and booking sites that have responded to the rise of agentic shopping by locking agents out entirely.
This isn’t Walmart’s first move in the space, either. The company previously announced a partnership with Meta’s Muse, one of the leading AI agents, and offers integrations with popular AI apps like ChatGPT and Gemini.
The bet is clear: whoever makes it easiest for AI agents to shop wins the next era of e-commerce. While Amazon tries to keep bots out, Walmart is trying to become their favorite store. The race for agentic commerce is officially on.
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Source: TechCrunch — read the full story there.
