Walmart welcomes AI agents as Anthropic launches its own » Borneo Bulletin Online

AFP – Walmart, a major US shopping company, announced tools that let artificial intelligence (AI) agents, such as Meta’s Muse, shop for customers. This is the opposite of what its rival Amazon does. Amazon does not allow outside AI agents to use its shopping platform.

AI agents are computer programs that can do several steps of a task for someone. For example, they can search for products, compare prices and complete purchases. This is different from chatbots, which mainly answer questions.

Technology companies including OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and Meta are investing large amounts of money in AI agents. Many people in the technology industry see these agents as the next stage of the AI boom that began after ChatGPT launched in late 2022.

Anthropic released a preview of Claude Duet, an AI agent that works in the background across apps connected to a user's account. With the user's approval, it can also make purchases online.

Its main rival, OpenAI, launched its own agents, called Dots, last month. These agents can keep working in the background. Meta launched Muse in September and has made it available only in the US and Canada. According to an analysis of third-party data by Sensor Tower, Muse has been downloaded more than 10 million times.

Walmart said it would launch “Agent Profiles” within the next month. Customers will be able to register each AI assistant they use as a separate profile in their Walmart account. This means purchases made by an AI agent will be shown separately from purchases made by the customer.

Customers will be able to choose whether an agent must get their approval for every purchase or can buy things on its own up to a spending limit they set. For example, they could set a limit of USD50, USD100 or USD200. Customers can delete an agent's profile at any time.

Walmart compared this system to adding an authorised user to a credit card.

Amazon, the largest online retailer in the US, has taken a stricter approach. It blocks shopping agents made by other companies while promoting its own AI shopping tools, such as Alexa for Shopping and its Buy for Me feature.

Last month, Amazon blocked Meta’s Muse from its website. Users saw a notice saying that AI agents without permission break Amazon’s conditions of use.

In November 2025, Amazon sued Perplexity, accusing the startup of secretly using its Comet browser agent to make purchases on Amazon's marketplace. Amazon has also taken steps to limit the use of agents from Google and OpenAI.