• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, October 14, 2025

Walmart ushered in a new way for its customers to shop online Tuesday in a partnership with OpenAI, enabling them to purchase products through agentic commerce.

Agentic commerce uses artificial intelligence (AI) and conversations to predict, plan and learn what consumers want. It turns ChatGPT into a personalized shopping assistant that no doubt in the future will link to the retailer's delivery service.

President and CEO of Walmart Doug McMillon views the shift to agentic commerce as a move that will eventually end the use of search bars for product discovery in its marketplace. 

"For many years now, ecommerce shopping experiences have consisted of a search bar and a long list of item responses," McMillon wrote in a post on Walmart's website. "That is about to change. There is a native AI experience coming that is multi-media, personalized and contextual. We are running towards [a] more enjoyable and convenient future with Sparky and through partnerships including this important step with OpenAI."

Sparky is Walmart's generative agentic AI shopping assistant in the company's app, which helps consumers find products, compare prices and items, and get personalized recommendations. 

The partnership builds on multiple ways that Walmart and Sam’s Club use AI -- such as enhancing product catalogs, improving customer-care resolution times and promoting AI literacy among associates.

Through this AI-first shopping experience, retail shifts from reactive to proactive as it learns, plans and predicts, and helps to anticipate customers' needs before they do.

Consumer adoption of agentic shopping technologies is increasing quickly. Traffic to U.S. retail sites from generative AI browsers and chat services increased 4,700% year-over-year in July 2025, according to Adobe, and these users are engaging more fully. They spend 32% more time on the site, browse 10% more pages, and have a 27% lower bounce rate. 

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) analysis suggests risks are associated for retailers that do not adopt agentic services mainly through disintermediation — when retailers are bypassed in favor of AI platforms that complete the entire shopping journey outside of the retailer's ecommerce platform.

"As GAI platforms become the default entry point for online shopping, consumers increasingly bypass retailer websites," according to BCG. "The growth of zero-click search and agent-driven interactions is eroding direct traffic — along with the retailer's ability to observe, influence, and understand consumer behavior at scale."

Walmart is not the only retailer to test or use agentic shopping agents. Amazon, eBay, Target, Sephora, and William-Sonoma are doing something similar. The technology uses AI agents to autonomously perform tasks for a shopper, from finding and comparing products to completing the purchase with little manual input.