Doug McMillon thinks Sparky has a very bright future.
“We see Sparky becoming an indispensable part of how people shop with us,” Walmart’s (WMT) president and CEO told analysts in August.
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Sparky is a generative-artificial-intelligence assistant that debuted in June. The world’s largest retailer says it synthesizes reviews, offers occasion-based recommendations, and helps customers plan, compare and purchase with confidence.
“Sparky’s the customer-facing assistant you see smiling at the bottom of our app,” McMillon said. “Today’s Sparky takes us from traditional search to intelligent-AI-powered assistants.”
He said Sparky would develop agentic capabilities over time, meaning it will act independently, autonomously, and with a degree of self-awareness to achieve goals.
“Customers are giving us positive feedback, and we’re excited about the road map ahead,” McMillon said. “As we improve and scale Sparky, we’ll make it even smarter and more personalized. It’ll be the primary digital vehicle for discovery, shopping, and for managing everything from reorders to returns.”
More recently, the company was touting the Walmart Translation Platform, which it said reduces costs and saves more than $20 million annually.
Analyst: Walmart AI agent Sparky is testing well
The platform got its start with Spanish search in 2022, and since then it has been naturalizing search for non-English-speaking users across the entire catalog.
“Beyond the efficiencies we’ve gained employing agentic AI, we’re creating a better overall experience with the focus on cultural adaptation throughout the whole tech-stack,” said Tim Simmons, senior vice president and chief product officer at Walmart International.
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Analysts at Bank of America Securities were impressed with Walmart’s agentic AI efforts. The investment firm reiterated its buy rating for Walmart and boosted its price target to $125 from $120.
B of A said it hosted investor meetings at Walmart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., with McMillon and other top executives.
“WMT’s AI agent Sparky is testing well and will soon start taking ‘agentic’ action vs. just answering [questions] (est. in weeks to months),” the firm said in a research note. “While the development of the market is still in very early stages, we see WMT as well positioned to be a leader in ‘top of funnel’ agentic AI commerce.”
Top of Funnel refers to the time when a potential customer becomes aware of a brand, product or service for the first time.
B of A cited Walmart’s impressive scale, its ability to serve customers both on and offline, and unmatched data from 180 million customers.
The firm also noted Walmart’s high potential for partnerships with some of the leading large language models with which the firm says Walmart already frequently engages. LLMs are AI programs designed to generate human-like responses to queries. They underlie programs like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
“Importantly, we believe retail media advertising has not been figured out for AI-generated transactions yet,” B of A said.
Report: Humans will remain an essential part of workforce
Amazon (AMZN) , arguably Walmart’s top competitor, had some AI-related news to share on Sept. 17: The e-commerce titan told the world about its AI agent designed to help third-party merchants operate their online businesses.
“Today, I’m excited to announce the next evolution of Seller Assistant, enhanced with agentic AI capabilities — an important step forward that allows AI to not just respond, but to reason, plan, and help take action with a seller’s permission,” Mary Beth Westmoreland, vice president of worldwide selling partner experience, said in a statement.
“Seller Assistant will be able to handle everything from routine operations to complex business strategy, so sellers can focus on innovation and growth,” she added.
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In June Amazon said it was planning to invest at least $20 billion in Pennsylvania to expand its data center infrastructure for AI and cloud computing.
One year into what it calls the agentic AI revolution, the consulting firm McKinsey said in a Sept. 12 report that one lesson is clear: “It takes hard work to do it well.”
“Achieving business value with agentic AI requires changing workflows,” the firm said. “Often, however, organizations focus too much on the agent or the agentic tool. This inevitably leads to great-looking agents that don’t actually end up improving the overall workflow, resulting in underwhelming value.”
AI agents can do a lot, McKinsey said, but they shouldn’t necessarily be used for everything.
“Too often, leaders don’t look closely enough at the work that needs to be done or ask whether an agent would be the best choice to perform that work,” the firm said.
“To help avoid wasted investments or unwanted complexity, business leaders can approach the role of agents much like they do when evaluating people for a high-performing team.”
Agents will be able to accomplish a lot, McKinsey said, “but humans will remain an essential part of the workforce equation even as the type of work that both agents and humans do changes over time.”
“People will need to oversee model accuracy, ensure compliance, use judgment, and handle edge cases, for example,” the firm said.
“The number of people working in a particular workflow, however, will likely change and often will be lower once the workflow is transformed using agents.”
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