The retail giant says it will make it easy for customers to use AI agents to shop.
EXPERT OPINION BY JASON ATEN, TECH COLUMNIST @JASONATEN
For most of the past two decades, Walmart has been the largest company in the world by revenue. It has more than 4,600 stores and brought in $713 billion last year, which would have been the most of any company once again if it weren’t for Amazon.
For years, Amazon and Walmart have competed with each other to be the main way that millions of people buy everything from toilet paper to bookshelves to televisions. And, until recently, the divide was rather simple: Amazon was the place you shopped from your computer, while Walmart was the place you went to shop in person.
Things changed, and Walmart realized there
Then, things changed, and Walmart realized there was a huge opportunity to leverage its stores as distribution centers and offer an even faster online shopping experience. Both companies have invested billions of dollars in making it easier to find whatever you need, order it with a few clicks, and have it show up at your door as quickly as possible.
Now, however, Walmart and Amazon are taking very different approaches to what is probably the biggest change in the way people shop online since Amazon introduced free shipping—letting AI agents shop on your behalf.
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On Wednesday, Walmart announced that it will make it easier to let AI agents shop for its customers. In fact, the retail giant is building tools designed specifically to help AI agents shop more efficiently, and creating tools for customers to better control what agents can actually do.
Amazon, on the other hand, has specifically banned
Amazon, on the other hand, has specifically banned AI agents from shopping on its website. The reason for the difference isn’t that surprising when you think about it, and it all comes down to simple math. We’ll get to that in a second, but first, here’s what Walmart is actually doing.
First, the company is introducing something called Agent Profiles, which are basically separate profiles within your Walmart account for AI assistants. You can give your agent permission to make purchases, set spending limits, and then see everything it orders in one place. You can also require it to ask for approval before it actually buys anything, and the agent doesn’t have access to your payment information.
Source: www.inc.com
