Walmart's Sparky AI agent increases order value

Walmart's Sparky AI agent is delivering outcomes customers that use it have a 35% order value over consumers that don't. 

The early returns highlight Walmart's overall AI strategy that revolves around using agentic commerce tools externally and AI and automation internally. Walmart has partnerships with Alphabet as well as OpenAI. 

Speaking on Walmart's fourth quarter earnings call, CEO John Furner said:

"Customer engagement is up and the customers who use Sparky have an average order value that's about 35% higher than non-Sparky customers. And I love how Sparky perfectly fits within our omnichannel strategy. It connects digital intent to fulfillment through forward deployed inventory and 1.5 million associates here in the U.S. When Sparky builds a basket, we execute it through fast delivery, pickup or in-store, turning AI engagement into immediate physical outcomes."

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Furner added that Sparky has only been rolled out in the US, but there are plans to roll it out globally. "We know that winning in a connected world means we need to deliver consistent experiences across markets. And to do that, we need to focus on technology platforms that are built for global business," said Furner. "The idea of building once, scale globally makes us faster, lowers cost and ensures consistency. And we use AI to layer on top of existing platforms, getting better leverage out of the assets we already own. This platform-centric approach helps us scale innovation consistently and reduce capital intensity."

Walmart said the usefulness of Sparky grows as the models behind the AI agent learns new skills and understand customer intent better. The trick for Walmart is to drive Sparky usage. So far about half of Walmart's app users have used Sparky. 

David Guggina, CEO of Walmart US, said that Sparky is helping the company "evolve from traditional search to intent-driven commerce." "Better discovery and higher conversion translates into bigger baskets and greater frequency. So simply put, Sparky is helping customers find the things they need, they want and they love, and it's strengthening our digital unit economics as it scales," said Guggina.

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