Walmart is rolling out a powerful new tool it calls “Wally,” a generative AI assistant designed to transform how the retail giant’s merchants, suppliers, and supply chain teams work.
The technology, which taps into the latest advances in artificial intelligence, is being integrated across Walmart’s merchandising systems with the goal of improving speed, accuracy, and decision-making across the board.
How Wally Works
At its core, Wally is like a highly intelligent digital assistant, built specifically to understand and interact with Walmart’s vast troves of retail data. It can answer questions posed in plain English, such as “Why are sales down for this item in the Northeast?” or “What inventory risks are we seeing this month?”
Instead of requiring complex spreadsheets or coding knowledge, users can type natural language questions and receive instant, tailored answers.
Behind the scenes, Wally taps into Walmart’s historical and real-time data—covering sales, supply chain movements, store performance, product trends, and customer behavior.
The system uses a custom-built layer of technology that interprets Walmart’s proprietary terminology and systems, allowing the AI to understand industry-specific context and respond accurately.
Simplifying Complex Tasks
Traditionally, Walmart merchants would spend hours analyzing reports and spreadsheets to track how products are performing, calculate inventory needs, or identify problems such as stock shortages or pricing issues. Wally compresses that work into seconds.
For instance, if a merchant wants to understand why a product is underperforming in a specific region, Wally can quickly pull up relevant sales data, compare it against benchmarks, and flag potential issues like regional demand shifts or supply delays.
Wally can also automatically generate detailed reports, suggest next steps, or even raise internal support tickets if a problem needs help from another department. It’s not just about answering questions—it’s about automating much of the behind-the-scenes work that retail teams have historically done manually.
Walmart’s Internal Benefits
For Walmart, the business case behind Wally is clear: greater efficiency, faster responses to market changes, and smarter inventory decisions. By streamlining routine tasks, the company frees up employees to focus on strategy, innovation, and responding to customer needs.
The move is part of a larger tech-driven transformation inside the company that includes AI tools like "My Assistant"—an internal generative AI platform helping corporate teams write and analyze documents—and Wallaby, a retail-specific AI model being used for personalized shopping experiences.
The use of Wally also reduces friction between departments. With a centralized, AI-enabled source of truth, teams can align more easily on what actions need to be taken, improving both speed and coordination across Walmart’s sprawling organization.
A Game-Changer for Suppliers
Wally isn’t just for Walmart’s internal teams. Suppliers who work with the company are expected to benefit, too. With greater access to performance data, market trends, and inventory forecasts, suppliers will be better equipped to manage their production and logistics in real-time.
This kind of transparency can help suppliers avoid overproduction, reduce lead times, and plan more efficiently—key in an industry where small delays can cause major disruptions.
Walmart’s earlier use of AI-driven negotiation software also laid the groundwork for closer digital collaboration with suppliers, showing the company’s willingness to use technology to streamline and optimize relationships across the board.
Part of a Broader Retail Trend
Walmart is not alone in its embrace of artificial intelligence. Amazon recently unveiled "Rufus," an AI assistant that helps customers find and evaluate products. Kroger has experimented with smart shopping carts that use AI to make checkout faster and more seamless.
Meanwhile, eBay and Etsy are integrating AI to deliver more personalized shopping experiences, using browsing and buying patterns to suggest relevant products.
Retailers are betting on AI as a way to stay competitive in a rapidly evolving industry. These technologies are becoming essential tools for managing supply chains, responding to consumer preferences, and running operations more efficiently.
Looking Ahead
Walmart’s Wally is still being rolled out gradually, but the company says feedback from employees has already been positive. As the system continues to learn and improve, it could become a critical backbone of Walmart’s day-to-day operations—offering near-instant access to insights and reducing the manual labor once required for routine analysis and planning.
With Wally, Walmart is signaling a clear commitment to AI not just as a support tool, but as a core engine driving the future of retail.
As artificial intelligence continues to mature, Walmart—and its suppliers—appear to be positioning themselves for a more automated, responsive, and efficient retail ecosystem.
