Press release

Walmart merchants are responsible for sourcing every item customers find on our shelves and online. Our merchants are critical to the happiness of our customers and the success of our business. It’s a role that blends strategy, analytics, creativity and relationship management – requiring both big-picture thinking and deep dives into data. In today’s fast-changing retail landscape, Walmart merchants need to move with speed. Yet, some of the most critical aspects of merchandising – particularly data analysis and reporting – are time-intensive.

Imagine a merchant for bread looking to better understand how to meet the growing customer demand for protein-based foods. To make informed decisions, they might analyze sales performance across stores, markets, regions and nationally; channel-specific sales (in-store, online, pickup, delivery); item-level sales (keto, wheat, white); and brand performance comparisons.

Each of these data points requires running multiple reports, sifting through complex spreadsheets and synthesizing insights – a process that, until now, took significant time and effort.

Recognizing the opportunity to streamline these tasks, we developed Wally, a GenAI-powered tool designed to be a productivity multiplier for our merchants. Built on Walmart’s proprietary data, Wally automates a variety of time-consuming processes, including:

• Data entry and analysis – Instantly generating insights from complex datasets.
• Root cause identification – Diagnosing why certain products are under- or overperforming.
• How-to support – Answering operational questions and raising tickets for unresolved issues.
• Advanced calculations – Automating complex formulas and predictions.

And because usability matters, Wally is designed to be intuitive, requiring no technical training. Merchants can simply ask questions and receive actionable insights in seconds. With AI removing the friction of manual reporting, our merchants can focus on what they do best: delivering the right products to customers, at the right time, and with greater efficiency than ever before.

The innovation behind Wally

Building an AI assistant for merchandising wasn’t straightforward. Unlike traditional AI models trained on broadly available data, Walmart’s merchandising business has specific needs.

To bridge this gap, we built a semantic layer, enabling Wally to understand the intricacies of our proprietary data. Wally handles and processes large volumes of product data efficiently through advanced algorithms and a robust computational infrastructure.

Walmart merchants’ response to Wally has been overwhelmingly positive, but we’re just getting started. We’ll continuously improve the tool – guided by the feedback and needs of Walmart merchants – ultimately enabling it to act autonomously on the merchant’s behalf within configurable guardrails, executing tactical actions necessary to bring their strategy to life.

By automating time-consuming tasks and providing actionable insights, Wally enables merchants to focus on strategic, creative and innovative activities that enhance customer experiences and meet evolving customer expectations.