Walmart goes deep in building AI, GenAI capabilities
Walmart has adopted the philosophy of building common technology platforms, which will find usage across its global operations, says Vinod Bidarkoppa, Executive Vice President and CTO of Walmart International.
US retail giant Walmart is layering artificial intelligence (AI) and GenAI capabilities across its operations and has started to reap early dividends—be it for its employees, buyers, or sellers.
Walmart—the largest retailer in the United States with branches across 18 countries—has adopted the philosophy of building common technology platforms, which will find usage across its global operations.
In a conversation with EnterpriseStory, Vinod Bidarkoppa, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Walmart International, said, “Bringing in the common platforms and then layering our generative AI capabilities across all of our retail operating footprint is our goal. And, there has been considerable progress in that space.”
Through AI, Walmart has been able to provide summarised information on user reviews of its products, where the list can be as long as 5,000 reviews, as well as assist sellers in marketing their products across geographies.
Vinod Bidarkoppa - EVP and CTO, Walmart International
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Sharing a testimony, the Walmart executive said the company has a seller in the UK who has been able to list its products in Canada, the US, Mexico, and Chile, with profit growing threefold largely due to the AI capabilities.
Bidarkoppa said the unified approach of Walmart across its global operations ensures there is no lag in the application of AI capabilities in any of the geographies. “When you have the common core, it becomes easy for us to extend it into different markets,” he remarked.
The AI capabilities have also helped Walmart in reducing the sourcing time cycle from 40 weeks to 8 weeks in certain product categories. According to him, instead of extracting information from various sources and dropping it onto an Excel sheet, the mundane part of the work is taken away, thanks to AI.
Bidarkoppa said these capabilities are helping people actually move up the value chain. “AI is an accelerator to help people bring more value to what they do,” he added.
These AI applications not only mean larger business volumes for sellers on the Walmart platform but also a better experience for the customers. Bidarkoppa believes AI adoption will increase when people start to see higher value.
Even in the agentic AI space, the Walmart executive said the company is continuing to see good results.
Walmart has technology centres in India spread across Bengaluru, Chennai, and Gurugram. Bidarkoppa said there is constant collaboration among its technology centres—be it in the US, Mexico, India, or Canada.
Edited by Suman Singh