Rezolve Ai
AI Visibility Study
MethodDemo
AI agents and US retail

97 of America’s 100 largest retailers publish no way for an AI agent to check out

AI agents are starting to shop for people. We scanned 2,047 US companies for what an agent needs to buy by itself. That is a published purchase protocol, or cart and checkout tools the agent can use in the browser. Small shops on Shopify and BigCommerce nearly all have one. Almost nobody else does.

Scanned from October 3 to 5, 2026.

97 of 100
of America's largest retailers publish no way for an AI agent to check out

84 publish nothing an agent could use. 13 turn automated visitors away before one can ask. The exceptions are Chewy, Lululemon and Academy Sports + Outdoors.

145 of 154
shops on Shopify and BigCommerce already let an AI agent check out

Their platform switched it on for them. Among every other company we could check, it is 4 of 1,725.

99%
of companies stop at the web basics

1,979 of 2,006 reach level 1 at most, on a scale that runs from 0 to 5. The basics are a rules file and a list of pages. Almost nothing is built for AI agents yet.

7
companies publish an interface built for AI agents

That means a server an agent can connect to, a card describing what the company's own agent does, a list of skills, or a catalog of its programming interfaces. We scanned 2,047 companies.

The NRF Top 100

3 of the 100 largest retailers are ready

The National Retail Federation ranks the hundred largest retailers in the United States by sales. 3 of them publish a file that tells an AI agent how to check out. Of the other 97, 84 publish nothing an agent could use, and 13 turn automated visitors away before one can ask.

ChewyNumber 40 by salesLululemonNumber 71 by salesAcademy Sports + OutdoorsNumber 76 by sales
  1. 1WalmartNothing published
  2. 2AmazonNothing published
  3. 3Costco WholesaleNothing published
  4. 4KrogerNothing published
  5. 5The Home DepotNothing published
  6. 6CVS HealthNothing published
  7. 7WalgreensTurns agents away
  8. 8TargetNothing published
  9. 9Lowe'sTurns agents away
  10. 10AlbertsonsNothing published
  11. 11AppleNothing published
  12. 12PublixNothing published
  13. 13Ahold Delhaize USANothing published
  14. 14ALDINothing published
  15. 15TJX CompaniesNothing published
  16. 16H-E-BNothing published
  17. 17Dollar GeneralNothing published
  18. 18Best BuyNothing published
  19. 19Ace HardwareTurns agents away
  20. 207-ElevenNothing published
  21. 21MeijerNothing published
  22. 22Ross StoresNothing published
  23. 23AT&TNothing published
  24. 24VerizonNothing published
  25. 25Macy'sNothing published
  26. 26BJ's Wholesale ClubNothing published
  27. 27Dick's Sporting GoodsNothing published
  28. 28ShopRiteNothing published
  29. 29Dollar TreeNothing published
  30. 30O'Reilly Auto PartsNothing published
  31. 31AutoZoneNothing published
  32. 32Tractor SupplyNothing published
  33. 33NordstromNothing published
  34. 34Kohl'sTurns agents away
  35. 35Hy-VeeNothing published
  36. 36MenardsNothing published
  37. 37GapNothing published
  38. 38WegmansNothing published
  39. 39Sherwin-WilliamsNothing published
  40. 40ChewyCan check out
  41. 41Ulta BeautyNothing published
  42. 42Health MartNothing published
  43. 43Family DollarNothing published
  44. 44Circle KNothing published
  45. 45BurlingtonNothing published
  46. 46WayfairNothing published
  47. 47WinCo FoodsNothing published
  48. 48Giant EagleNothing published
  49. 49Discount TireTurns agents away
  50. 50GNGood Neighbor PharmacyNothing published
  51. 51Saks Fifth AvenueTurns agents away
  52. 52SephoraNothing published
  53. 53Sprouts Farmers MarketNothing published
  54. 54Harbor Freight ToolsNothing published
  55. 55Price ChopperNothing published
  56. 56PetSmartNothing published
  57. 57El SuperNothing published
  58. 58Bass Pro ShopsNothing published
  59. 59Williams-SonomaNothing published
  60. 60Army and Air Force Exchange ServiceNothing published
  61. 61AmwayTurns agents away
  62. 62Hobby LobbyNothing published
  63. 63QVCNothing published
  64. 64BBrandSourceNothing published
  65. 65Bath & Body WorksNothing published
  66. 66DellNothing published
  67. 67True ValueTurns agents away
  68. 68Total Wine & MoreNothing published
  69. 69Camping WorldNothing published
  70. 70JD SportsNothing published
  71. 71LululemonCan check out
  72. 72Casey'sNothing published
  73. 73Dillard'sNothing published
  74. 74Signet JewelersNothing published
  75. 75StaplesNothing published
  76. 76Academy Sports + OutdoorsCan check out
  77. 77JCPenneyNothing published
  78. 78Piggly WigglyNothing published
  79. 79PetcoTurns agents away
  80. 80Raley'sNothing published
  81. 81Market BasketNothing published
  82. 82Victoria's SecretNothing published
  83. 83IKEANothing published
  84. 84MichaelsNothing published
  85. 85Defense Commissary AgencyNothing published
  86. 86Stater BrosTurns agents away
  87. 87Exxon MobilNothing published
  88. 88OverstockNothing published
  89. 89Five BelowNothing published
  90. 90American EagleNothing published
  91. 91Grocery OutletNothing published
  92. 92Weis MarketsTurns agents away
  93. 93Urban OutfittersTurns agents away
  94. 94Ingles MarketsNothing published
  95. 95TapestryNothing published
  96. 96Murphy USATurns agents away
  97. 97Advance Auto PartsNothing published
  98. 98SchnucksNothing published
  99. 99Abercrombie & FitchNothing published
  100. 100Save A LotNothing published

“Nothing published” means we read the website’s purchase files and found none. “Turns agents away” means the website refused our requests for them, as it would refuse an agent arriving by itself. Neither says anything about a private arrangement between a retailer and one AI assistant, which a scan of the website cannot see. See how often AI names each of the 100.

The divide

It depends on the software the shop runs on

Shopify and BigCommerce publish a purchase protocol for every shop they host, so a small shop gets one without doing anything. A retailer that built its own shop, or runs on other software, has to add it. Among those, it is 4 of 1,725.

Shop softwareWebsites we could checkAn agent can check outShare
BigCommerce99100.0%
Shopify14513693.8%
Salesforce Commerce Cloud5911.7%
Their own or other software1,58330.2%
WooCommerce7000.0%
Magento1300.0%

All 2,047 companies, retailers or not. A website that turned the scan away is in no row. Every purchase protocol we found is the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). No company publishes any of the four others we look for.

Retail and everyone else

Outside retail, an agent finds even less

Buying is a retail question. Being readable and usable by an AI agent is a question for every company. On that, retailers and everyone else look the same: nearly all stop at the web basics.

What we foundRetailersEveryone elseAll companies
Companies scanned6401,4072,047
An agent can check out137 of 58312 of 1,296149 of 1,879
Stop at the web basics (level 0 or 1)97.9%99.0%98.7%
Publish an interface built for AI agents347
Offer an agent tools in the browser11311124
Turned most of the scan away202141

“An agent can check out” is counted over the websites where we could read the purchase files. The levels are counted over the websites where at least half the checks could run.

AI readiness, level by level

Which level do companies reach?

Six levels, with the same rules as isitagentready.com: from the web basics to a website an agent can work on by itself. 99% of companies are on level 0 or 1. 41 turned most of the scan away and are not placed.

0362 companies · 18%
Not yet agent-ready

Agents struggle to find basic information about the site.

11,617 companies · 81%
Basic web presence

Two of robots.txt, a sitemap and Link headers are in place.

222 companies · 1%
Bot-aware

Explicit AI bot rules and declared Content Signals.

Acacia ResearchBJ's Restaurant & BreweryBoingo WirelessBonfireCal-MaineCampmorThe Children's PlaceCYNGNFreshpetGrouponGymboreeIconix Brand GroupImpinjJohnston & MurphyMauricesNewmark GroupNvidiaSimon Property GroupTWThe Walking CompanyTillysWegmansZoom Communications
33 companies · 0.1%
Agent-readable

Agents can request pages as markdown.

Bandwidth.comCommVault SystemsRare Carat
42 companies · 0.1%
Agent-integrated

At least one of an MCP card, A2A card, skills index or API catalog is published.

CloudflareGoFoodservice
50 companies · 0%
Agent-native

Signed bots, every integration and auth metadata, two of the three.

For your technical team

What an agent finds when it arrives

Every check we ran, and the share of companies that pass it. The first four groups decide the level. The last is about buying and does not count towards it.

Discoverability
robots.txt
92.0%
Sitemap
86.8%
Link headers
0.3%
DNS for AI Discovery
5.5%
Content accessibility
Markdown negotiation
1.9%
llms.txt
25.1%
Bot access control
AI bot rules
93.4%
Content Signals
1.4%
Web Bot Auth
0.2%
APIs, auth and MCP
API Catalog
0.3%
OAuth discovery
11.8%
OAuth Protected Resource
10.3%
auth.md
0.0%
MCP Server Card
0.2%
A2A Agent Card
0.1%
Agent Skills
0.2%
WebMCP
33.7%
ARD manifest
0.1%
Buying
x402
0.0%
MPP
0.0%
UCP
8.0%
ACP
0.0%
AP2
0.0%
Who is ready

149 companies an AI agent can buy from

Each of these publishes a way for an AI agent to check out, or offers one cart tools in the browser. Open a company to see what it publishes.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud · 1
Lululemon Athletica
Their own or other software · 3
ChewyAcademy Sports + OutdoorsBackcountry.com
How we measured

What this scan can and cannot tell you

We visited each website the way an AI agent would. First as an automated visitor that says what it is. Where that was refused, from an ordinary US home connection, and then with a real browser. We looked for 23 things an agent can read or use, and for five purchase protocols.

This shows what a website publishes for any agent that arrives. It does not show private arrangements between one retailer and one AI assistant. And an agent can still try to click through a checkout page like a person, which is slow and is often blocked.

Read the full method, or go back to the US AI Visibility Study.

Next step

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