Walmart Bets Big on AI

Walmart is betting big on AI, unveiling a comprehensive strategy that could redefine retail. The retail giant is weaving artificial intelligence, generative AI, augmented reality, and immersive commerce into the fabric of its operations. This initiative, part of what Walmart calls "Adaptive Retail," aims to create personalized shopping experiences across its expansive ecosystem, including physical stores, e-commerce platforms, and virtual environments.

At the heart of Walmart's AI push is Wallaby, a suite of proprietary large language models (LLMs) specifically tailored for retail applications. Trained on decades of Walmart data, Wallaby is designed to understand the nuances of Walmart's operations and customer interactions. This retail-specific approach allows Walmart to combine Wallaby with other LLMs, creating highly contextual and personalized customer experiences that align with the company's core values.

The development of Wallaby represents a strategic decision by Walmart to invest in its own AI capabilities rather than relying solely on third-party solutions. This move is not surprising given Walmart's vast troves of customer, employee, logistics, and retail data, which provide a rich foundation for training specialized AI models. However, the company is not putting all its eggs in one basket. Desirée Gosby, vice president of emerging Technology at Walmart Global Tech, emphasized that Walmart will continue to use a mixture of models, including third-party options, depending on the specific use case.

One of the first applications of Walmart's AI efforts is an enhanced customer support assistant. This AI-powered chatbot now recognizes customers from the outset of interactions, understands intent, and can perform actions such as locating orders and managing returns. This level of personalization and functionality aims to streamline customer service interactions and improve overall satisfaction.

Walmart is also leveraging AI to reimagine its digital storefronts. The company has developed a Content Decision Platform that uses AI and generative AI to predict and deliver the type of content individual customers are most likely to engage with. This technology is already being implemented on Walmart.com, with plans to create unique homepages for each shopper by the end of 2025. The company intends to extend this capability to its Canadian and Mexican markets, setting a new standard for personalized online retail experiences.

In addition to these customer-facing applications, Walmart is exploring how AI can enhance its internal operations. The company has been using AI for years to help employees access information about policies and to manage its supply chain. Now, with the development of Wallaby and other AI tools, Walmart is poised to expand these capabilities further, potentially transforming how its vast workforce interacts with technology to improve efficiency and decision-making.

Walmart's AI strategy extends beyond traditional retail boundaries into the realm of immersive commerce. The company has developed an AR platform called Retina, which uses AI, generative AI, and automation to create 3D assets and power new shopping experiences. This includes the "View in Your Home" feature, which allows customers to visualize products in their own spaces, and partnerships with platforms like Unity and ZEPETO to bring Walmart's commerce capabilities into virtual and gaming environments.

Walmart's heavy focus on AI reflects a broader trend in the retail industry, where companies are increasingly turning to advanced technologies to gain a competitive edge. As one of the world's largest retailers, Walmart's moves in this space are likely to influence the direction of the industry as a whole. However, the true test of these initiatives will be in their execution and the tangible benefits they deliver to customers, employees, and the company's bottom line.

• Zoom introduces AI Companion 2.0, a more personalized assistant designed to streamline tasks across Zoom Workplace, now with expanded features and real-time web search.

• TikTok cuts global jobs, to improve content moderation using AI, as it faces growing regulatory pressures and invests $2 billion in safety efforts.

• TikTok kicks off “Fall Deals For You” promotion, offering discounts from top brands to push in-app shopping, a key revenue driver for the platform ahead of the holiday season.

• Facebook's new redesign emphasizes Marketplace and TikTok-style features to regain Gen Z users, whose engagement has significantly dropped over the past decade.

• Amazon owned Ring's new AI search tool allows users to easily find specific video clips using natural language prompts.

• TikTok and Perplexity enter the search ad space, targeting Google’s core business, as Google’s U.S. search ad market share is projected to drop below 50% for the first time.

• Google is reimagining its search results with Gemini AI, organizing answers into categories and introducing hyperlinks within AI-generated summaries to enhance user experience.

• $1000 on a monthly basis!? Doesn’t sound too bad, but could it be?

  

• A conversation where how much of an impact AI really has had over positions in the company.

  

🤖 Forefront - Your AI assistant for work

🎥 Studio Neiro AI - Scale your marketing videos with AI avatars.

💰 Payback - GPT-4 Vision enabled expense tracker

🎙Toasty AI - AI content creation for podcasts

📊 HeyDay - Turn your information into insights

⚙️ PlusDocs - Create custom templates for Google Slides.

😍It was great, all I needed

🙂Good, not great

🙄It sucked