It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s U.S. retail giant Walmart’s (WMT) new Super Agents!
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Okay, maybe not as dramatic as Superman, but the U.S. retail giant is promising something super by ramping up its AI suite to help improve the shopping experience, cut costs and beat e-commerce rival Amazon (AMZN).
Agentic AI
The group said it was rolling out four so-called “super agents”, which would be powered by agentic AI and that it would soon become the main way in which shoppers, staff, suppliers and software developers engage with the business.
According to the boffins, Agentic AI is the next iteration of generative AI, in that it does not need much human intervention to make decisions and achieve specific tasks.
For ordinary shoppers, it means helping them find new products, accelerating delivery times and helping make returning products an easier process. By doing so it hopes to take share away from Amazon and power its e-commerce business forward.
Indeed, it wants e-commerce to hit 50% of total sales – see below – within five years.
One of the agents called Sparky, is already available for shoppers on Walmart’s app as a Gen-AI powered tool. It helps shoppers get product suggestions for a sporting activity like playing tennis, finding the right ink for their printer, or summarizing product reviews.
However, according to Hari Vasudev, Walmart’s U.S. chief technology officer, when it puts on its super agent cape it will be able to reorder items, plan an event such as a “unicorn-themed party”, and through computer vision be able to offer product recipes by just looking at the contents of a shopper’s fridge.
Tricky, perhaps for the single man with his lone pack of beer and some seen-better-days cheese.
Agent Walmart
Walmart is also developing an “Associate” super agent, to be rolled out in the coming months, which will allow workers and corporate staff to do things such as submit an application for parental leave or give store managers immediate information on sales data for a certain category or a product with minimal input. Employees now use separate AI tools to handle those queries.
For sellers, suppliers, and advertisers, Walmart is developing a super agent called “Marty” to streamline the onboarding process, manage orders and create ad campaigns. It is also working on a “Developer” super agent, which will be the platform on which all future AI tools will be tested, built, and launched.
“Agents can help automate and simplify pretty much everything that we do,” Suresh Kumar, Walmart’s chief technology officer said.
He said that the time was right for the launch because “customers are ready, they are using AI in pretty much everything they do.”
To help drive the changes Walmart has hired Instacart (CART) Chief Product Officer Daniel Danker as head of global AI acceleration, product, and design, starting next month and reporting to CEO Doug McMillon.
Walmart stock was down in pre-market trading, while rival Amazon, which has its own suite of AI tools, was up narrowly. However, WMT has performed better in the year-to-date.
Is WMT a Good Stock to Buy Now?
On TipRanks, WMT has a Strong Buy consensus based on 28 Buy ratings. Its highest price target is $120. WMT stock’s consensus price target is $111.33, implying a 16.36% upside.
