Walmart is charting its own course, one that runs in the opposite direction of Amazon, welcoming customers to use AI shopping bots on their site.

AI shopping bots, like much in the AI industry, has been a controversial topic. Amazon has taken one of the strictest approaches, recently blocking Meta’s Muse agent from its site, suing Perplexity, and restricting agents from Google and OpenAI.

According to Business Insider , however, Walmart is welcoming third-party AI shopping agents, even building agent profiles and an agent gateway to make it easier for customers.

“As customers begin using agents to help them shop, we’re building connections, permissions and options that complement those tools and support how customers want to use them,” the company said in a statement to BI.

Walmart is also emphasizing its commitment to privacy, saying the gateway only provides the information necessary to complete a transaction.…