The news: Walmart is introducing a shopping app in ChatGPT powered by its AI assistant, Sparky. The app takes ChatGPT users to a “tailored Walmart environment” where shoppers can link their accounts and loyalty memberships and check out via Walmart’s payment systems.

The feature is currently available on web browsers and will roll out to iOS and Android at a later date.

How we got here: Walmart’s retreat from in-chat checkouts reflects the limits of agentic commerce, both from a technical and consumer adoption standpoint.

• Conversion rates for checkouts in ChatGPT were three times lower than when users clicked through to Walmart’s website, Daniel Danker, the company’s executive vice president of AI acceleration and product and design, told Wired.
• Danker blamed technical limitations—mainly, the ability to only purchase one item at a time—for the lack of adoption among shoppers.

The implications: Despite initial hiccups, Walmart is bullish about agentic commerce’s potential. ChatGPT brings new customers at twice the rate of search engines, according to Danker, making it a valuable channel for Walmart even if users aren’t checking out there just yet.

The challenge now for Walmart is ensuring that Sparky is able to deliver. While the retailer has said that shoppers who use the assistant have higher order values than non-users, Sparky is not yet fully reliable. That could challenge Walmart’s ability to retain its new customers and fully take advantage of AI platforms’ growing influence over product purchases.

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