Walmart on Tuesday announced a new partnership with OpenAI that will allow consumers to shop Walmart products, including groceries (non-perishables) and household items, through an AI chatbot and check out instantly.
The agent-assisted shopping feature allows Sam’s Club members to plan meals, restock essentials, and even discover new items while chatting with AI, the company said.
To use this feature, customers link their Walmart account to ChatGPT and then press the “Buy” button in the ChatGPT app when shopping. Products from third-party sellers will also be supported when this feature rolls out later this fall.
Walmart says its new deal with OpenAI will help retailers better learn and predict customer needs, making online shopping more personalized and proactive rather than reactive.
The partnership follows OpenAI’s recent plans to enter the world of e-commerce with an agent shopping system that includes product discovery, recommendations, and payments. The company says OpenAI will initially partner with sellers on Etsy and Shopify.
ChatGPT-focused shopping features aren’t the only way consumers can shop with AI. Alongside other AI investments, Walmart recently introduced Sparky, a unique generative AI shopping assistant designed to help customers discover, compare, and purchase products. This functionality expands to include reordering, service booking, and understanding multimodal input from text, images, audio, and video.
The retailer has an existing relationship with OpenAI in other areas of its business, employing OpenAI certifications and ChatGPT Enterprise for its internal teams. Both Walmart and Sam’s Club are leveraging AI extensively, including speeding up fashion production by up to 18 weeks and improving customer care times by up to 40%.
“For years, the e-commerce shopping experience has consisted of search bars and long lists of product answers. That’s about to change,” Walmart President and CEO Doug McMillon said in a prepared statement. “Multimedia, personalized, and contextual native AI experiences are here. Through Sparky and our partnerships, including this important step with OpenAI, we are driving toward a more enjoyable and convenient future,” he added.
