Walmart has revealed its intentions to delve deeper into the realm of artificial intelligence and drones with the aim of enhancing customer shopping experiences.
During a keynote presentation at the CES trade show in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Walmart’s President and CEO, Doug McMillon, along with other executives, provided insight into how the retail behemoth is leveraging emerging technologies such as augmented reality (AR), drones, generative AI, and other artificial intelligence tools to enhance the overall shopping experience for its customers.
Specifically, Walmart revealed a new GenAI-powered search experience now available to iOS customers. The enhanced search experience allows customers to now search by specific use cases, e.g., a football watch party versus individual searches for chips, wings, drinks and a 90-inch TV. It generates relevant, cross-category results.
The omnichannel retailer also provided a sneak peek into Walmart InHome Replenishment, which uses AI and Walmart’s decades of replenishment expertise to ensure customers’ online shopping carts are filled with the right items at the right time and delivered into a refrigerator in a kitchen or garage.
The company, which also owns SA’s Massmart – owner of Game and Makro, revealed a beta social commerce platform called Shop with Friends that takes AR shopping to the next level by enabling customers to share the virtual outfits they create with friends and get feedback on their fashion finds.
But adaptive retail is not limited to search and discovery; it’s about creating personalized, seamless and flexible shopping experiences from start to finish.
“While omnichannel retail has been around for decades, this new type of retail – adaptive retail – takes it a step further,” said Suresh Kumar, global chief technology officer and chief development officer, Walmart Inc.
“It’s retail that is not only eCommerce or in-store, but a single, unified retail experience that seamlessly blends the best aspects of all channels. And for Walmart, adaptive retail is rooted in a clear focus on people.”
Walmart also announced another step in its goal to offering customers the ultimate convenience of getting items in as soon as 30 minutes by expanding drone delivery to 1.8 million additional households in the Dallas Fort-Worth metroplex – 75% of the area. Of the 120,000 items in a Supercenter, 75% meet the size and weight requirements for drone delivery.
