Beta Testing in the Mobile App (June 2024)
-
It enables natural-language queries, e.g., “Which TV is best for watching soccer?”, and tailors follow-up questions (e.g., “How is the lighting in the room?”) to refine product suggestions
Integrated GenAI Features Across Platforms
-
Walmart expanded GenAI features across its platforms, including:
-
A GenAI-enhanced search experience on the app and website to reduce time spent scrolling and improve discovery
-
Additional GenAI tools like product reviews, automated summaries, and comparisons
-
Infrastructure & Strategy
Wallaby — Walmart’s Retail-Specific LLMs (Oct 2024)
-
Walmart developed “Wallaby”, a proprietary series of retail-specific large language models (LLMs). These are trained on decades of internal data to provide highly contextual, Walmart-aligned conversational responses in a natural tone
-
Wallaby powers multiple customer-facing experiences as part of the retailer’s GenAI platform
Content Decision Platform & Personalization (Late 2024–2025)
-
To personalize shopping experiences, Walmart created a Content Decision Platform that uses AI and GenAI to predict what content a customer might prefer, delivering a unique homepage per shopper
-
The U.S. rollout is slated for by the end of 2025, with plans to expand to Canada and Mexico
Efficiency & Productivity Gains
-
Walmart highlights that GenAI—particularly for annotating product attributes and characteristics—achieves up to 100× productivity improvements versus manual efforts. This efficiency is instrumental in scaling product handling across its massive catalog.
Read Also: AI Shopping Assistant Market
Strategic Context: “Adaptive Retail”
-
Introduced formally in October 2024, Adaptive Retail signals a shift from siloed in-store or online shopping to a seamless, hyper-personalized omnichannel experience powered by AI, AR, and Immersive Commerce.
-
The GenAI shopping assistant aligns with this vision: blending conversational support, personalization, and AI-driven convenience across customer touchpoints
Summary Table
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Launch / Beta | June 2024 (mobile app) |
| Key Functionality | Conversational discovery (inspiration → selection) |
| Supporting Tech | GenAI search; product reviews; summarization; comparisons |
| Core Infrastructure | Wallaby LLMs (retail-specific, context-aware) |
| Personalization Engine | Content Decision Platform → personalized homepages |
| Efficiency Impact | Up to 100× more productive for attribute processing |
| Strategic Framework | Adaptive Retail — unified, personalized retail across all channels |
What to Watch Next
-
Full rollout: Will the GenAI assistant expand beyond selected beta users to the broader app user base?
-
Homepage personalization: Rollout in U.S. expected by end of 2025; will follow expansion to Canada & Mexico.
-
Evolution into “Super Agents”: A July 2025 Reuters report reveals Walmart plans to roll out Sparky, a more advanced GenAI assistant capable of making product recommendations, managing orders, and generating recipes via computer vision—and forming part of a suite of super agents for different user groups (customers, employees, suppliers)