The news: Walmart rolled out Sparky, its generative AI (genAI) assistant, to all Walmart app users this week—a preliminary step that puts it closer to achieving its agentic ambitions.
How it works: For the time being, Sparky is confined to basic assistant duties. Shoppers can use the feature to receive product recommendations and review summaries, as well as get generalized assistance on topics ranging from the weather to sports schedules.
Eventually, Sparky will be enhanced with agentic AI capabilities that can automatically reorder household essentials as well as book services. The shopping assistant will also be able to understand text, images, audio, and video, allowing it to deliver more useful and personalized experiences based on consumer needs and habits.
The big picture: Walmart is one of several retailers looking to get a head start on agentic AI, recognizing the technology’s ability to fundamentally reshape the path to purchase.
- Walmart’s own research has found that many consumers are already comfortable with the idea of allowing digital agents to make purchases on their behalf. Nearly half (47%) would trust them to choose and buy household essentials within a set budget, followed by 41% for home goods, 38% for food and groceries, and 38% for technology and electronics.
- But as with genAI writ large, trust is a significant barrier to agentic adoption. Shoppers’ willingness to hand over the reins is tempered by concerns over inaccurate information and hallucinations—which could be exacerbated in the short term as companies struggle to optimize their platforms for AI search and agents.
Our take: By broadening Sparky’s capabilities, Walmart is trying to position itself not only as a shopping destination, but also as a place where consumers can go when they need everyday life advice or information—such as how to fix a leaky faucet or help with event planning. Whether the retailer succeeds will depend on how well Sparky works, and whether it can convince shoppers to overcome their current skepticism of AI tools.
Go further: Read our report on AI Agents and the Consumer Journey.