In North America, no battle between online retailers is bigger than Amazon vs. Walmart, and the two companies have taken dramatically different approaches to one of the most important topics in web sales for 2026: agentic commerce.
The two strategies taking shape at these companies underscore their different histories, strengths and opportunities to grow as they seek to increase market share across the spectrum of merchandise categories in which they sell. In the meantime, the choices they make have the potential to shape the future of online grocery sales at both companies.
Currently, Amazon and Walmart rank No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in Digital Commerce 360’s Top 2000 Database. That database tracks North America’s largest online retailers by their annual web sales. By extension, Amazon and Walmart are also No. 1 and No. 2 in the Mass Merchants category above Target and Costco.
How do Amazon and Walmart’s agentic commerce strategies compare?
The differences between Amazon’s agentic commerce choices and those of Walmart highlight why these two retailers are unique. However, to understand their two paths — and why agentic commerce carries distinct implications for them individually — it is useful to see where this technology intersects with their business interests.
So far, agentic commerce, which uses generative artificial intelligence (AI) to execute tasks for shoppers, has advanced into early stages of development from tech companies, such as OpenAI, Google and others, to build shopping lists, perform research and provide checkout options for purchases that can ultimately come from multiple merchants.
While both Amazon and Walmart have their own AI agents for shoppers to use, Amazon in particular has taken steps to push customers toward using its own AI tools, such as Buy for Me and Alexa+. As it has done so, Amazon has also made moves to keep third-party AI agents from using its website, notably sending a legal threat to Perplexity, an AI search platform, and blocking other AI platforms via code on its site.
In contrast, Walmart is working with OpenAI and Google directly to facilitate agentic shopping experiences and checkout through ChatGPT and Gemini.
What’s at stake
In choosing to be more open to other channels of discovery and purchasing, Walmart is distinguishing itself from its top Mass Merchant competitor. Amazon has a great deal invested in keeping its Amazon Prime members shopping through its first-party AI tool and internal ecosystem without sharing too much with tech companies whose large language models (LLMs) and services compete with offerings from AWS.
AWS was responsible for $35.6 billion of Amazon’s $213.4 billion in total sales during its most recent fiscal Q4. Moreover, the business unit’s sales grew by 24% year over year.
Walmart, meanwhile, does not have an AWS unit of its own to consider. Thus, it is pursuing discoverability and sales through other agentic channels without those considerations to take into account. It doesn’t necessarily need Amazon’s strategy to fail in order to come out ahead, though as shoppers decide what to buy with AI on third-party platforms, they may be more likely to encounter Walmart product listings than options from Amazon as a result.
📧 Editor’s note: Subscribe to our retail newsletter to make sure you see each weekly edition of Ecommerce Trends.
Do you rank in our databases?
Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.
Sign up
Stay on top of the latest developments in the online retail industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and YouTube. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.
