Seat allocated at gate
 

I have two flights today with delta , I checked in yesterday and got allocated a suitable seat for my 1st flight MCO to ATL but didn't get a seat for my 2nd flight ATL to MKE and it stated "seat at gate"
how does this work , anyone have experienced this before ?

As it says at gate the agent will assign. Look at the TV display or in app. It'll show when assigned.

Usually due to no free seats available in your purchased class of service. In these cases odds are good that you'll end up in either C+/exit row or a crappy middle seat in the back.

Or OP has a Basic Economy ticket which does not guarantee you will get a seat at check-in (even if there are open seats in economy) .

"Seat at gate" means you will be assigned a seat at the gate. Nothing worth overthinking in the term.

Why? Could be any number of reasons, but none matter as you will be assigned a seat at the gate.

You should make a point of asking and not relying on the GA to get this done in a timely manner.

Could wind up in the worst seat on the plane or there could be a lot of others upgraded and a bunch of misconnects and you will wind up in a C+ aisle.

Just go to the gate, and be nice and flirt with the GA, and you will likely get a better seat than people that had seat assignments. This is the sad state of Delta's version of musical-chair which they call seat assignment/upgrade.