{"id":20964,"date":"2025-07-24T16:50:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T16:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/20964\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T16:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T16:50:08","slug":"walmart-unveils-ai-super-agents-roll-out-to-boost-e-commerce-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/20964\/","title":{"rendered":"Walmart unveils AI super agents roll-out to boost e-commerce growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Walmart declined to say whether the super agents would replace jobs.Mike Blake\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Walmart Inc. WMT-N<\/a> unveiled plans on Thursday to roll out a suite of AI-powered \u201csuper agents\u201d designed to improve the shopping experience for customers and streamline operations.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s largest retailer said the four agents powered by agentic AI<\/a> \u2013 designed for Walmart shoppers, store employees, suppliers and sellers, and software developers \u2013 would soon be the primary way people engage with Walmart.<\/p>\n

The super agents will be the entry point for every AI interaction these groups have with Walmart, replacing several existing agents and AI tools, along with new ones yet to be built, the company said. Walmart is betting on AI to drive its e-commerce growth, aiming for online sales to account for 50 per cent of its total sales within five years. The company reported annual sales of US$648-billion last year.<\/p>\n

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By harnessing AI to streamline the shopping process \u2013 from discovering new products and helping with returns to improving delivery speeds \u2013 the retailer hopes it can attract more shoppers away from Amazon, which has also introduced a range of AI-powered tools for sellers and shoppers.<\/p>\n

Walmart\u2019s push comes as the short-term financial payoff of AI remains uncertain and concerns over how it might affect jobs across the industry.<\/p>\n

One of the agents, Sparky, is already available for shoppers on Walmart\u2019s app as a Gen-AI powered tool. Currently it assists customers with getting product suggestions for an athletic activity, finding the right ink for their printer, or summarizing product reviews, among other options.<\/p>\n

In its \u201csuper agent\u201d form it will be able to reorder items, plan an event such as a \u201cunicorn-themed party\u201d and through computer vision be able to offer product recipes by just looking at the contents of a shopper\u2019s fridge, Hari Vasudev, Walmart\u2019s U.S. chief technology officer, said at an event in New York.<\/p>\n

Agentic AI is the next iteration of generative AI, in that it needs minimal human intervention to make decisions and achieve specific tasks.<\/p>\n

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Walmart is also developing an \u201cAssociate\u201d super agent, to be rolled out in the coming months, which will allow workers and corporate staff to do things such as submit an application for parental leave or give store managers immediate information on sales data for a certain category or a product with minimal input. Employees now use separate AI tools to handle those queries, a company spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

For sellers, suppliers, and advertisers, Walmart is developing a super agent called \u201cMarty\u201d to streamline the onboarding process, manage orders and create ad campaigns. It is also working on a \u201cDeveloper\u201d super agent, which will be the platform on which all future AI tools will be tested, built, and launched, the company said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgents can help automate and simplify pretty much everything that we do,\u201d Suresh Kumar, Walmart\u2019s chief technology officer said. He added that the company chose to launch these super agents now because \u201ccustomers are ready, they are using AI in pretty much everything they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company declined to say whether the super agents would replace jobs. Dave Glick, senior vice president of enterprise business systems, said it would create new jobs without elaborating further.<\/p>\n

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On Wednesday, Walmart had two AI-related announcements: it hired former Instacart executive Daniel Danker as executive vice president (EVP) for AI acceleration, product and design and created a new EVP, AI role that is yet to be filled.<\/p>\n

While retail has largely avoided AI-related layoffs, the tech industry has been hit hard, even in a historically strong market and resilient economy. In June, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said generative AI and agents will reduce its total corporate workforce over the next few years. Microsoft has emphasized that AI will boost productivity, but it has laid off thousands of employees, while Google has laid off hundreds of employees.<\/p>\n

Walmart has not linked any job cuts directly to AI, but it has been downsizing its corporate staff and is modernizing e-commerce fulfilment centres with automation, resulting in some workforce reductions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Walmart declined to say whether the super agents would replace jobs.Mike Blake\/Reuters Walmart…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,901,276,277,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-20964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-alberta","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}