Walmart Lets AI Assistants Shop for You While Amazon Blocks Them

Walmart is building a system that lets an AI assistant browse products, fill a cart and complete a purchase for you. Amazon is going the other way. It is blocking AI shopping bots from its platform, as Yelp and Delta also do.

What changed

An AI agent is a program that can carry out tasks on your behalf instead of just answering questions. Companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Google are racing to build them, and shopping is an obvious use. Walmart's system includes guardrails. Customers can set spending limits and require approval for specific purchases. The report compares it to handing an assistant a company card with preset restrictions, not open access to your bank account.

Amazon sees it differently. The report says Amazon has spent decades building its recommendation engine and customer profiles, and agents that choose on price and availability could weaken that advantage.

What is not known yet

The report does not say when Walmart's system will be available to shoppers. It also does not say which AI assistants will work with it or exactly how the limits and approvals are set up. Target, Costco and other big retailers have not said which side they will take. For now, if you want an AI assistant to buy for you, Walmart looks like the likelier place for it to work first.