As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to gain traction in ecommerce, Walmart is stepping up work with its assistant, Sparky, to get it in front of shoppers.
The retailer rolled out Sparky earlier this week and did not shy away from its agentic commerce ambitions. The AI-powered tool is designed to help customers search for products, compare different options and sift through reviews. Sparky is now live across all product categories and can be accessed through a new smiling “Ask Sparky” button in the Walmart mobile app, the company stated in a June 6 blog post.
Walmart is No. 2 in the Top 2000 Database, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of North America’s online retailers by annual web sales. The retailer is also No. 9 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database. The list contains Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of top online marketplaces by third-party gross merchandise value (GMV). Digital Commerce 360 projects Walmart’s online sales will reach $153.88 billion in 2025.
What Walmart’s Sparky assistant does
An example of Walmart’s Sparky virtual assistant chatting | Image credit: Walmart
“In today’s always-connected world, Sparky is here to do more than just answer questions, it is designed to be a trusted partner,” wrote Desirée Gosby, senior vice president of tech strategy and emerging technology at Walmart.
Over time, Walmart plans to upgrade the customer-facing assistant with more advanced AI capabilities, she noted. These include automatic reordering and multimodal input, which will allow shoppers to interact with text as well as images, audio, and video.
Built on retail-specific AI models
Unlike standard chatbots, Sparky is trained on large language models tailored to retail use cases. According to Walmart, the assistant can handle detailed product queries, summarize customer reviews, and help users compare items within its mobile app.
Sharing examples, Gosby said Sparky can support shopping scenarios such as checking which sports teams are playing and finding the right jersey, or looking up beach weather and receiving outfit recommendations. The assistant can also help with event planning or gift shopping, suggesting toys, decorations, or other occasion-specific items.
“From answering product questions to comparing options, Sparky takes the guesswork out of shopping, making recommendations so customers can add to cart with confidence,” Gosby said. “Sparky provides instant and comprehensive answers to product-related questions, helping customers quickly understand specific features, compare items and make informed choices.”
Sparky builds on Walmart’s existing suite of AI-powered shopping tools. These currently include product review summaries, product descriptions and comparisons, and AI-enabled search within the navigation bar, Gosby said.
Walmart has also been deploying AI tools internally. In March, the company introduced “Wally,” a generative AI assistant designed to support its merchants, Walmart’s term for employees who source products for its stores and online.
Moving toward agentic AI
Sparky also reflects Walmart’s expanding investment in agentic AI. The category of artificial intelligence goes beyond content generation to perform tasks, such as picking out items or completing a transaction, on behalf of users.
Until now, Walmart’s efforts in this space have focused primarily on internal tools and customer service applications, according to Hari Vasudev, the chief technology officer at Walmart.
But with Sparky, the retailer is shifting into more advanced, customer-facing capabilities. Walmart says it plans to evolve Sparky into a multimodal agent that can handle more complex tasks, like automatically reordering household items, scheduling services, or giving personalized suggestions based on a shopper’s preferences.
“Ultimately, Sparky will solve everyday problems, freeing up time for what matters most,” Gosby wrote. “‘What’s for dinner?’ becomes a week of family-approved meal plans with ingredients automatically added to cart. ‘How do I fix this leaky faucet?’ turns into step-by-step guidance with the right tools ordered for same-day delivery.”
“Sparky is more than a feature — it’s a foundation for what’s next,” she added. “Fueling Walmart’s trajectory into the future of shopping, Sparky isn’t just revolutionizing retail; it’s paving the way for a new and improved customer experience.”
Walmart research: Shoppers want AI with a human touch
Walmart joins a growing list of retailers and tech platforms testing the waters of agentic AI. In April, Amazon began piloting “Buy for Me,” which lets customers purchase items from third-party brands directly through its app.
In its Retail Rewired 2025 report, Walmart identified AI — and agentic AI in particular — as central to the next phase of retail, describing it as “an invisible but indispensable layer of the shopping journey.”
The report, from early June, found that 27% of consumers now trust AI-powered recommendations more than influencer suggestions (24%), and many say they already rely on AI to compare prices, receive alerts on price drops, and narrow down options based on historical preferences.
Yet despite the growing reliance, shoppers remain selective about when and how they engage with AI. Traditional search still dominates, and 46% of survey respondents said they were “somewhat unlikely or very unlikely” to let a digital assistant or agent oversee an entire shopping trip for them.
“From our research, shoppers are more comfortable using digital assistants for lower-stakes purchases like household essentials,” the retailer stated. “But when it comes to big-ticket or emotionally significant items — furniture or food/groceries — AI hits a trust barrier.”
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