Walmart U.S. President and CEO David Guggina announced that advances in ambient AI automation and customer-facing applications like AI assistant Sparky are delivering marked gains in store execution, delivery speeds, average order value, and conversion (Retail Dive - Technology). Weekly engagement with Sparky has grown 60% quarter over quarter, and the assistant's new visual search capabilities have led to a 57% spike in conversion compared to text-based searches (Retail Dive - Technology). Guggina hinted at opportunities to integrate Sparky into other parts of the Walmart business, such as its Vizio and Onn electronics units (Retail Dive - Technology).
Guggina credited AI-driven efficiencies with Walmart's 24% year-over-year e-commerce sales growth in Q2, marking the 10th consecutive quarter of more than 20% growth (Retail Dive - Technology). The company is reinvesting cost savings from AI into competitive pricing and customer experience improvements. Walmart is also benefiting from partnerships with external AI agents like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, which deep link to Walmart and generate high conversion rates and strong organic repeat customer rates (Retail Dive - Technology).
This approach contrasts sharply with Amazon's strategy of blocking AI agents from Perplexity, Meta's Muse, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft from accessing its platform. For commerce practitioners, Walmart's open-ecosystem model—combining proprietary AI with third-party agent access—demonstrates a scalable path to customer acquisition and conversion that competitors are actively restricting.