Walmart says Sparky users spend 40 per cent more per order

MUMBAI: Sparky is giving Walmart shoppers more to think about and apparently more to put in the basket. Customers using the retailer’s AI shopping assistant are spending 40 per cent more per order than those who do not, according to Walmart CEO John Furner.

Speaking during Walmart’s recent earnings call, Furner said the number of customers using Sparky has increased 70 per cent from last year. He said customers and members who use the AI assistant for shopping spend 40 per cent more per order than other shoppers.

Sparky is designed to move online shopping beyond the traditional search box. It can help customers discover products, compare options, summarise reviews and build baskets around specific needs.

One example shared by Furner involved a shopper asking Sparky to create a weekly meal plan featuring healthy, high-protein foods. The assistant generated recipes and meal kits and allowed the shopper to add the required ingredients to the basket with a single click.

The tool can also recognise products that customers have recently bought, both online and in stores. That allows Sparky to avoid recommending or adding items shoppers may already have at home, potentially making repeat purchases more relevant rather than simply adding more products to the basket.

The 40 per cent spending difference comes with an important caveat. The figure compares customers who use Sparky with those who do not; it does not establish that Sparky itself caused the higher spending.

Walmart has not disclosed a holdout experiment that would isolate the assistant’s direct impact, meaning the higher spending could also reflect differences between the types of customers who choose to use the tool.

Even so, the numbers give Walmart another reason to keep pushing AI deeper into its e-commerce operation.

The retailer has been moving towards AI-assisted discovery and agentic commerce, where shoppers can describe a need or goal rather than search for an individual product. Sparky can help with tasks such as meal planning, product discovery and household replenishment.

The strategy also builds on Walmart’s broader AI push. Its 2025 partnership with OpenAI was aimed at allowing customers to shop through ChatGPT, including planning meals and restocking everyday essentials.

Sparky’s rising adoption therefore puts AI closer to the centre of Walmart’s digital shopping journey from discovery and recommendations to basket building.

With usage up 70 per cent and users spending 40 per cent more per order, Walmart has a compelling signal to keep experimenting. Whether Sparky is making baskets bigger or simply attracting bigger shoppers remains the unanswered question but either way, AI has found a place at Walmart’s checkout.