When Walmart first announced it would be hosting a CES keynote, we were admittedly a little skeptical. Now it all makes sense, though: America’s largest retailer came to CES 2024 in Las Vegas to talk about artificial intelligence. In a joint statement on Tuesday, the companies said it was working with Microsoft to create what it calls an artificial intelligence-driven shopping experience. In his keynote speech, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon described how it is using the integration of artificial intelligence across its website and apps to study shopper behavior and recommend future purchases.
As you might expect given Microsoft’s involvement, the artificial intelligence that underpins these experiences will be powered by large-scale language models provided through a partnership with Microsoft. The artificial intelligence it plans to deploy will use a combination of retail-specific search capabilities based on Walmart’s own proprietary technology and Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service.
Walmart’s new generative AI search capabilities will be available on iOS and Android mobile devices and on the company’s website. The new search feature will give shoppers more options for interacting with the retailer’s digital inventory. For example, instead of searching for items like soda and potato chips, shoppers can find product recommendations for a specific event, such as a birthday celebration or a game day watch party, by telling the site they need help shopping using natural language.
During the keynote, Macmillan said the algorithms are designed to “provide a curated list of the best products” by highlighting relevant product categories after a search. These new algorithmic shopping programs will compete directly with Google’s artificial intelligence search tool SGE and Amazon’s large language model-driven product listing program.
While most of the AI efforts appear to be consumer-focused, the company says the new AI search capabilities won’t just help shoppers. It will also expand the tools available to store associates, designed to help streamline work-related tasks and workflows. This can also be seen in its announcement that at Walmart-owned Sam’s Club stores, employees will soon no longer have to check shopping receipts as people leave the store. Instead, it will deploy an artificial intelligence tool to verify customers’ purchases.
Additionally, Walmart teased “Walmart Home Replenishment,” a system that will also use artificial intelligence to predict which items in a shopper’s cart need to be restocked in a timely manner. The product will serve as an extension of its “InHome” program, which became available to Walmart+ shoppers in 2019.
In addition to artificial intelligence, the retailer also revealed plans to incorporate augmented reality into its shopping experience. The company launched Shop with Friends, a beta social commerce offering that uses augmented reality to give shoppers the option to share virtual outfits with friends to get feedback as they shop. Finally, Walmart will expand its drone delivery testing program to more consumers, starting with more shoppers in Texas. An additional 1.8 million households will receive drone delivery services, helping shoppers get items in as fast as 30 minutes.
We will provide live coverage of CES 2024, which will be held in Las Vegas from January 6th to 12th.Get all the latest news from the show here.
This article originally appeared on Engadget: https://www.engadget.com/walmart-makes-a-rare-ces-appearance-to-promote-ai-powered-shopping-005538465.html?src=rss
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