Walmart on October 21, 2026 announced Agent Gateway — an MCP server that lets approved AI agents connect to Walmart over the Model Context Protocol to search its online inventory and make purchases on behalf of shoppers. The announcement was made by CEO John Furner at the Masters of Scale summit in San Francisco. TechCrunch reported this.
The official gateway: what Agent Gateway does
Agent Gateway is Walmart's new MCP server. Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that lets AI agents access external data sources, tools, and systems. Walmart's gateway gives agents access to catalog search, order placement, and delivery tracking — all within rules set by Walmart.
With the rollout of Agent Profiles next month, customers will authorize each AI agent they use with a dedicated profile in their Walmart account, see the agent's purchases separately from their own, and control approvals — either per order or in advance for entire categories. This is Walmart's answer to one of the most delicate questions of agentic commerce: who is responsible for what the agent bought.
Agents cannot take actions beyond what the shopper intends, cannot access customers' payment information, can only access the data needed for the task, and Walmart's returns process applies when an agent misbehaves.
According to Walmart, agents cannot take actions beyond what the shopper intends, cannot access customers' payment information, can only access the data needed for the task, and Walmart's returns process applies when an agent misbehaves. In other words, the agent is not an independent buyer but an executor with strictly limited rights.
The opposite direction: Amazon blocks, Walmart opens
Walmart's decision is the opposite of its main competitor Amazon's recent move: Amazon began blocking AI agents from making purchases on its site. A number of travel and booking sites have also started banning AI agents from making purchases on their platforms, TechCrunch noted.
Walmart, by contrast, already offers integrations with Meta's Muse, ChatGPT, Gemini and others, and the new technology will also support the company's wholesale network — Samʼs Club. One of the market's leading agents — Meta's Muse — has already announced a partnership with Walmart, and ChatGPT is also integrated with the retailer.
An important nuance: Walmart's returns process applies when an agent misbehaves. This means agent mistakes are treated as ordinary returns cases — the shopper is not left alone with the consequences of an AI's erroneous purchase.
What's next
Agent Profiles launch next month: users will be able to connect their own agents and flexibly configure permissions. Walmart is effectively building agentic-commerce infrastructure — while competitors close their doors, the retailer is opening its gates.
For Uzbek readers following the AI field, the news is telling: agentic commerce is moving from experiments into the infrastructure of the largest retailers, and the question of trust in agents — who controls their purchases — is becoming the industry's central question.
