The largest US retail chain, Walmart, has announced the launch of tools that will allow artificial intelligence (AI) to make purchases on behalf of customers. This refers to AI agents - programs capable of performing multi-step tasks, such as searching for products, comparing prices and placing orders, rather than simply answering questions like chatbots. Meta's Muse is named as the first example of such an assistant.
Walmart has chosen the opposite approach to its competitor Amazon, which blocks third-party AI agents on its platform. Over the next month, Walmart plans to launch "Agent Profiles". Customers will be able to register each AI assistant they use as a separate profile in their account, so that purchases made by the agent are displayed separately from their own.
Users will be able to require confirmation for each purchase or allow the agent to spend funds independently within a set limit, for example 50, 100 or 200 dollars. The profile can be deleted at any time. Walmart compared this scheme to adding an additional cardholder to a credit card.
Technology companies, including OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and Meta, are actively investing in agents, seeing them as the next stage in the development of AI after the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022. On Wednesday, Anthropic presented a preliminary version of Claude Duet - an agent that works in the background in a user's connected applications and can make online purchases with their approval. Rival OpenAI launched its own always-on agents called Dots last month.
Meta's Muse, launched in September and available only in the US and Canada, has been downloaded more than 10 million times, according to third-party data analysis from Sensor Tower. Amazon, the largest online retailer in the US, has taken a tougher stance: it blocks third-party shopping agents while promoting its own AI tools, such as Alexa for Shopping and the Buy for Me feature. Last month, Amazon blocked Muse on its website, showing users a notice that unauthorized AI agents violate the terms of use. In November 2025, Amazon sued the startup Perplexity, accusing it of having its Comet agent secretly make purchases on the marketplace, and it has also restricted access to agents from Google and OpenAI.