Walmart Expands its artificial intelligence offers (AI) by presenting a new sales assistant.
Customers can now access the generative “spark” powered by AI on the Walmart application, said the retail giant in a Friday, June 6) announcement.
“Sparky helps customers to find out to find articles, to synthesize opinions and offers information to prepare for any occasion – to search for current sporting events and to find the right jersey for celebrations planning and to choose the perfect toy,” said Walmart. “For example, everything in the Sparky platform, a customer can ask what the sports teams play that evening or check the weather at the beach in which he heads-and get the perfect recommended outfit.”
In addition to making recommendations, Sparky also provides “instant and complete” answers to product issues, added, helping customers understand specific features, compare articles and make informed choices.
“Soon, Sparky will do even more – give customers the power to personalize their experience, from the automatic reorganization of essential household elements to reservation services that even simplify the most complex purchase tasks,” said the company.
Walmart has said that the assistant will be multimodal (capable of understanding the text, images, audio and video), “weaving in a transparent manner in customer lives to unlock instant access to the products and services they need, each time and also that they buy.”
Walmart deploys Sparky at a time when he is rival Amazon Feel the pressure of the evolution of consumption expenditure habits, as covered here at the end of last month.
“Recent results on the results have provided a warning shot for the two heavyweights in the industry,” wrote Pymnt. “After years to get into the rear winds of a passage induced by the pandemic to digital purchases, the two companies are now confronted with a slower growth environment as consumer expenditure models are evolving and the prices threaten price increases on everything, from furniture to clothes.”
During the first three months of 2025, Amazon and Walmart displayed their lowest quarterly growth in sales since before the pandemic coche: 3.7% for Amazon, 3.2% for Walmart. These figures have barely exceeded inflation and have marked a sharp drop in their average growth in recent years.
To fight against this trend, Pymnts noted in a distinct report last week, the two companies adopt the innovation of the AI, part of a broader trend of the retailers deploy the assistants of the AI.
The Pymnts Intelligence report “Get to know you: How AI shapes the future of shopping” shows that retailers hope to exploit the growing interest of consumers for sales agents powered by AI. The report also revealed that most consumers want to participate in AI purchase trips at least a certain level.
