A New Wave in Retail Transformation
Walmart has released its Retail Rewired Report 2025 and unveiled a bold new strategy centered on agentic AI. This is AI that can take action on behalf of users, streamlining the customer journey, operations, and decision-making. The company is rethinking how technology powers everyday retail across aisles, apps, and employees.
What’s Changing: The Rise of Super Agents
Instead of relying on dozens of small, separate AI tools, Walmart is consolidating into four core systems they’re calling Super Agents:
Sparky is already live on the Walmart app. It helps customers with product suggestions, orders, and even meal planning using computer vision.
Associate Agent is built for Walmart employees. It handles questions about benefits, manages shift planning, and simplifies internal operations using conversational AI.
Marty supports suppliers and advertisers. It manages onboarding, advertising campaigns, and catalog updates, all in one place.
Developer Agent helps Walmart’s internal development teams manage tools and platform workflows more efficiently.
This move simplifies the company’s systems. As Walmart CTO Suresh Kumar puts it, having one agent for payroll and another for merchandising can be confusing. Super Agents remove that friction.
Why It Matters: Driving E‑Commerce and Efficiency
Walmart expects online sales to make up 50% of its total revenue within five years. To make that happen, it’s leaning on AI agents to deliver personalized shopping and faster operations—aiming to compete directly with Amazon.
Some of the early wins:
- Customer support resolution times cut by up to 40%
- Shift planning reduced from 90 to 30 minutes
- Fashion production timelines shortened by up to 18 weeks
Sparky can already suggest recipes based on what’s in your fridge. The Associate Agent helps with leave applications and data access. Marty automates ad campaigns and onboarding. All four agents work together, powered by an internal system called the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which allows them to sync across functions.
Human in the Loop: Reskilling and Ethical AI
Despite the autonomy of these systems, Walmart is keeping people involved. Tools like real-time translation in 44 languages and AI-driven task management are already used daily by 900,000 associates, handling more than 3 million queries every week.
On the ethics side, Walmart has signed a Responsible AI Pledge, committing to transparency, fairness, and accountability in how it uses AI. It’s a move to build trust as automation becomes more central to the retail experience.
Bigger Picture: Building a Tech-Driven Retail Empire
This isn’t a trial run. The Retail Rewired Report makes it clear—AI is being baked into every corner of Walmart’s operations. Its 10,000-plus physical stores are turning into data centers feeding smarter algorithms.
Walmart is building much of its core tech in-house, like its Element ML platform. At the same time, it’s forming strategic partnerships for niche technologies such as warehouse robotics and negotiation AI. This approach gives the company speed and control without sacrificing innovation.
What This Means Moving Forward
Here’s the deal:
- Walmart is making AI simple and usable
- Four Super Agents replace a maze of scattered tools
- Shopping experiences and internal efficiency are getting a major upgrade
- Ethics and reskilling aren’t an afterthought
- The online and in-store experiences are becoming tightly woven together
This isn’t hype. It’s a well-planned shift in how one of the world’s largest retailers operates. By turning its scale into a smart, connected network, Walmart is changing the retail game from the inside out.
Under What Banner?
Walmart’s move toward agentic AI is grounded in solving actual problems: smoother shopping, smarter systems, and more empowered teams. It’s also a direct shot across the bow at Amazon.
But this isn’t reckless innovation. The company’s focus on governance and long-term impact suggests it’s building something meant to last.
Bottom line: Retail is being rewired. And Walmart’s Super Agents are at the heart of it, quietly reshaping how the world shops—one decision at a time.
