Walmart recycles AI savings into CX as its e-commerce grows 10 quarters straight

Walmart has been putting what it calls physical AI into its supply chain for over seven years, but 2026 is when, per Walmart U.S. CEO David Guggina, the technology started visibly 'reshaping our company, reshaping our customer value proposition.' Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Global Consumer and Retail Conference, he described ambient AI automation and customer-facing applications like the Sparky assistant as producing marked gains in store execution, delivery speeds, average order value and conversion.

The mechanism Guggina laid out is a flywheel: AI-driven efficiencies make deliveries faster and cheaper to run, and Walmart reinvests those savings into competitive pricing and customer experience rather than banking them. Sparky sits at the center of the experience side — weekly engagement grew 60% quarter over quarter, and its new visual search converts 57% better than text search; orders through Sparky carry 40% higher average order value. He hinted Sparky could next reach Walmart's Vizio and Onn TVs.

On third-party AI agents Walmart chose the open side of a split in retail: it welcomes ChatGPT and Google Gemini, which mostly deep-link to Walmart and send high-converting customers, many of them new or returning with 'very high' organic repeat rates. Amazon, by contrast, moved to block Meta's Muse and agents from Perplexity, OpenAI, Anthropic and Microsoft.

The results Walmart cited: e-commerce sales up 24% year over year in Q2, the 10th consecutive quarter of more than 20% growth, which Guggina attributed in large part to the AI-driven efficiencies and their reinvestment.

E-commerce sales +24% YoY in Q2, 10th straight quarter above 20% growth; Sparky weekly engagement +60% QoQ; visual search conversion +57%.

AI efficiencies lowered delivery and operating costs, and reinvesting them into pricing deepens appeal to consumers Guggina calls resilient but intentional.

Sparky's visual search converts 57% better than text search, so assistant capability upgrades pay for themselves in conversion.

Letting ChatGPT and Gemini deep-link in brings new customers at high conversion and repeat rates that paid acquisition struggles to match.

Blocking agents, as Amazon does, risks losing the emerging AI shopping funnel; staying open keeps Walmart on the open web.

When automation produces savings, recycle them into the customer proposition immediately: cheaper to serve becomes cheaper to shop from, and the gains compound.

Guggina flagged extending Sparky into Vizio and Onn devices so customers can shop and navigate apps on the TV, and Walmart kept welcoming external AI agents while Amazon blocked them. All the metrics above are as stated by Guggina at the conference; no independent verification has been published.