Recommendation SystemConsumer FacingVerified
Reviewed and published by trentmaziarz, March 22, 2026. Discovered and drafted by our automated research pipeline.
Sparky is Walmart's AI-powered shopping assistant built into the Walmart mobile app. Shoppers can have a conversation with it — typing things like "Help me plan a flower-themed birthday party" — and it returns product suggestions, review summaries, and occasion-based recommendations. It launched in June 2025 and is available to U.S. app users. Walmart says customers who use Sparky spend about 35% more per order than those who don't.
Details
Sparky is powered by Walmart's proprietary large language models called Wallaby, combined with third-party AI models. It is designed to go beyond search: instead of listing results for a keyword, it interprets what a shopper is trying to accomplish and curates a relevant product selection. Walmart has described Sparky as "agentic," meaning it can take actions on a shopper's behalf — such as managing reorders or returns — not just answer questions. Future planned features include multimodal inputs (text, image, audio, and video). Sparky is one of four "super agents" in Walmart's enterprise AI architecture.
Products affected
Walmart mobile app
Sources & Evidence
Other practices by Walmart
OtherWalmart is piloting an AI tool that simulates a job interview for candidates applying to work at the company. It walks applicants through up to 10 practice questions, scores each response on a scale of 1 to 10, and gives instant feedback on how clearly and confidently the person answered. The pilot began in June 2025 with current Walmart employees and was planned to expand to all applicants.OtherWalmart delivers orders using drones and self-driving trucks that operate without a human driver. Drone delivery is available near 270-plus Walmart stores and is on track to reach 40 million Americans. In 2021, Walmart and an autonomous trucking company called Gatik completed the world's first fully driverless commercial delivery route, with no safety driver in the cab.OtherWalmart uses AI software to plan the most efficient routes for its delivery trucks, figure out how to pack trailers to minimize wasted space, and cut unnecessary miles from its logistics network. Walmart says this eliminated 30 million unnecessary miles and avoided 94 million pounds of CO₂ emissions. The company now sells this same routing technology to other businesses as a commercial software product.
Have evidence about Walmart's AI practices? Submit a report.
Report a Sighting →