Walmart executives are talking about AI the way retailers have long wanted to talk about personalization: as something that understands intent and language, not just item history.
At Walmart’s Associates Week in Bentonville, CEO John Furner said AI is helping teams finish technology projects faster across the company. He also kept the brakes lightly tapped: it is still early, and Walmart is still figuring out what works and what doesn’t.
Then there is the part everyone eventually invoices for: compute.
Walmart is now limiting the number of “tokens” each employee can use on Code Puppy, an internal AI agent that helps non-technical users with things like spreadsheets and presentations. CTO Suresh Kumar said demand has come from communications, merchandising and even store managers. Usage has also exposed a familiar workplace ritual: employees asking the same prompts again and again, as if repetition might summon a cheaper answer.
On the customer side, Walmart is working out where AI shopping actually happens, especially inside outside agents like ChatGPT. EVP Daniel Danker said Walmart wants to “own the shopping functions” at the point of purchase so it can recommend complementary items and account for what is already in a customer’s Walmart cart. As Walmart has iterated on that handoff, he said conversion has increased. No figure was given.
Danker described the larger shift as a move from item-level search to conversational shopping: a “lasagna” intent can trigger a full ingredient bundle, while prompts that start outside commerce — “Where should I go camping?” or “How do I get wine out of a sofa?” — can still end with a product recommendation and a retailer that can handle returns.
Read more at Digiday.