Walmart's AI Super Agent Revolution | Fast Five Shorts
Walmart is revolutionizing retail AI with their new "super agent" strategy! In this segment from the Omni Talk Retail Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Simbe, Mirakl, Infios, Clear Demand, and Ocampo Capital, Chris and Anne dive deep into how Walmart is consolidating dozens of AI agents into four specialized "super agents" for customers, employees, engineers, and suppliers.
Discover why this consolidation strategy could be the future of retail AI and how Walmart's CEO-level commitment sets them apart from competitors. Plus, hear Chris's take on whether four agents is too many or just the right stepping stone to the ultimate single super agent.
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For the full episode head here: https://youtu.be/pB45J7EFcCI
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Transcript
Walmart is overhauling its approach to AI super agents.
Speaker A:According to the Wall Street Journal, Walmart is overhauling its AI agent strategy as it aims to simplify their user experience.
Speaker A:Agents refer to artificial intelligence tools that can independently take some action on behalf of a user.
Speaker A:And Walmart in recent months has built dozens, maybe too many as a matter of fact.
Speaker A:And things were starting to get a little confusing for their users.
Speaker A:Walmart told the Wall Street Journal now the retail giant is taking a step back and consider consolidating all of those agents into four discrete interfaces it calls super agents.
Speaker A:That is a direct quote folks, super agents.
Speaker A:One is for customers, one is for employees, one is for engineers and one is for sellers and suppliers.
Speaker A:Walmart said the super agent for each group will tap the capabilities of a number of behind the scenes agents, all in a single unified experience.
Speaker A:Chris, are you pro or con?
Speaker A:Walmart's aggressive use of super agents.
Speaker B:Ooh, yeah, I mean I think I'm lauding Walmart for this one.
Speaker B:And I mean I laud them for being, I love them for being so public with their AI intentions in general.
Speaker B:I think that's notable for a retailer particularly, especially when you look back 30 years ago at the dawn of E commerce and how retailers reacted to that.
Speaker B:So you know, most people dismissed it back then and so Walmart's being the first to jump into it.
Speaker B:So, so for that I think it wins marks with me.
Speaker B:Secondarily I think unlike many other retailers again it also appears that there's a well thought out deployment strategy around AI to keep everyone on the same page.
Speaker B:So I think that's also good versus having, you know, because I've seen a lot of approaches to.
Speaker B:You and I were talking about this yesterday on the plane.
Speaker B:We've seen a lot of approaches too where just individuals are just like acting willy nilly with AI and whatever use cases they want inside organizations.
Speaker B:But you know, Walmart here is being very thoughtful and breaking down a bucket.
Speaker B:So I like that.
Speaker B:But the third question I have to ask, yeah, which this one's kind of interesting to me is why four super agents?
Speaker B:Like doesn't the argument for the super agent kind of go against having four?
Speaker B:Shouldn't there just be one super agent that everyone can interact with at the end of the day?
Speaker B:So I don't really get the logic of this.
Speaker B:But with that said, there's probably somebody out there that understands AI better than I do that can answer that to say if, to tell me if I'm snipping off, snipping, sniffing up the right track.
Speaker B:But, but maybe that's where the other part about it too is.
Speaker B:Maybe that's where they ultimately go.
Speaker B:But first they have to acculturate the organization to, to AI and hence they're using the buckets to do that, to get everyone on the same page.
Speaker B:So I can buy into like the step, step wise approach to super agents.
Speaker B:But in theory there should just be one super agent.
Speaker B:I would say.
Speaker A:Sure, yeah.
Speaker A:I mean that makes sense to me.
Speaker A:I think what is more most important here are two things.
Speaker A:One, that you know, they are, it does sound like in the consolidation of multiple agents down to just four, that they're really invested in listening to all of the stakeholders involved in using these AI agents.
Speaker A:So they are, you know, maybe there's value to highly specializing each agent based on, you know, a customer's needs, based on the associates in store needs, the suppliers needs, etc.
Speaker A:So I think that to me that just shows, like you said, Walmart has a very well thought out strategy.
Speaker A:Strategy and is light years ahead of a lot of other retailers in terms of how they're going to apply this technology.
Speaker A:And the second thing that I think is really important too to note is their cto.
Speaker A:Kumar said his last name is Kumar.
Speaker A:I forget his first name.
Speaker A:Suresh Kumar.
Speaker A:I think there's a great quote that he said in this Wall Street Journal Journal article.
Speaker A:He said the shift is a natural evolution based on the fact that the company found so many different use cases for AI agents.
Speaker A:The technology has buy in at all levels at Walmart, starting with the leadership at the very top.
Speaker A:And that's the other thing that's really important here.
Speaker A:Not only are they specializing each of these agents to the right people for now, hopefully building up to one super agent, but they have buy in from their leaders at the very top of Walmart going down.
Speaker A:This is a direction that they're heading in a technology that they're investing in.
Speaker A:And I think that to me is one of the key parts of what the future success looks like for Walmart and these agents.
Speaker B:Yeah, your point about the leadership is really good too.
Speaker B:The other thing I saw over the weekend, I saw Doug McMillan talking about this on LinkedIn and Doug McMillan, you know, if he's talking about it, you know that means the CEO is focused on it.
Speaker B:And that's very rare for a CEO to be talking about this type of thing that overtly as well.
Speaker B:So it's a great point.
