Walmart AI Assistant Sparky Users Spend 35% More — The Power of Intent-Driven Commerce Revealed in Earnings Call

Walmart CEO Reveals AI Results in Q4 Earnings

Walmart AI Assistant Users Spend 35% More, CEO Says

Walmart CEO reveals AI assistant users spend 35% more, signaling major shift in retail AI strategy

On February 19, 2026, Walmart held its FY26 Q4 earnings call. During the call, CEO John Furner revealed that customers using the AI shopping assistant "Sparky" placed orders that were "approximately 35% larger" compared to non-users.

Quarterly revenue reached $190.9 billion (up 5.6% year-over-year), with adjusted EPS of $0.74 beating analyst expectations. U.S. e-commerce sales grew 27% year-over-year, with digital channels now accounting for approximately 23% of total sales.

Industry Trends

Since the second half of 2025, the retail industry has been rapidly integrating AI assistants into customer touchpoints. Amazon's "Rufus" recorded 140% year-over-year growth in monthly active users, with an estimated annual revenue uplift exceeding $10 billion. OpenAI has integrated checkout functionality into ChatGPT, partnering with Target and Instacart, as the AI shopping wars heat up in 2026.

Against this backdrop, Walmart's quantitative data showing a "35% increase in order value" confirms that AI assistants are not merely convenience tools but engines that directly drive sales growth. Walmart's e-commerce sales surpassed $150 billion for FY26, and the company has set a goal for e-commerce to account for half of total sales within five years.

How Sparky Works and "Intent-Driven Commerce"

Sparky is the AI assistant that Walmart launched in June 2025 under the banner "The Future of Shopping is Agentic". It is integrated into the Walmart app as a smiley-face "Ask Sparky" button and offers the following capabilities:

• Product search and discovery: Instead of keywords, users can ask in natural language like "What do I need for a weekend BBQ?" and receive bundled product suggestions
• Review summarization: Instantly analyzes hundreds of reviews and presents the information needed for purchase decisions
• Event-linked recommendations: Integrates with sports schedules and weather forecasts to recommend scene-appropriate products
• Text, image, voice, and video support: Supports multimodal input, with reorder and service booking features planned for expansion

David Guggina, newly promoted to CEO of Walmart U.S., stated during the earnings call that "Sparky is evolving traditional search into intent-driven commerce." He explained that improvements in personalization and contextual understanding have enhanced product discovery and conversion rates, leading to "larger basket sizes and higher purchase frequency."

CEO Furner also emphasized the integration with omnichannel strategy: "When Sparky builds a basket, it is fulfilled through same-day delivery, pickup, or in-store collection. AI engagement instantly translates into physical outcomes." Sparky is currently limited to the U.S., with international expansion planned for the future.

Dual Strategy with Merchant AI "Wally"

Walmart's agentic commerce strategy extends beyond the consumer side. The company also deploys a merchant-facing AI assistant called "Wally". Built on a proprietary "semantic layer" of data, Wally provides the following capabilities:

• Product performance diagnostics (analyzing why products are or aren't selling)
• Instant insight generation from complex datasets
• Answering operational questions and creating tickets for unresolved issues
• Automating predictive models and advanced calculations

The system is designed to deliver actionable insights through natural language queries without requiring technical expertise. With consumer-facing Sparky handling "discovery of what to buy" and merchant-facing Wally optimizing "what to sell," an AI-driven ecosystem spanning the entire platform is taking shape.

Furthermore, Walmart is rolling out "Sparky Sponsored Prompts," integrating advertising within Sparky, establishing a model that naturally embeds ads into conversational shopping flows. Walmart Connect's advertising business generated $4.4 billion in revenue in FY25, drawing attention as a new revenue stream through AI assistants.

Impact and Applications for E-Commerce Businesses

Walmart's "35% increase" figure carries important implications for all e-commerce businesses.

Redesigning the discovery-to-purchase journey is urgent. It has been proven that AI assistants driven by customer "intent" rather than traditional keyword search can boost both basket size and conversion rates. Now is the time to consider implementing chat-based product recommendation features and context-linked recommendations on your own e-commerce site.

Walmart Marketplace sellers need to pay particular attention. Whether Sparky recommends your products depends on the quality of data the AI references. Product titles, descriptions, review quantity and quality, and category settings all need to be reviewed from an AI Engine Optimization (AEO) perspective.

Rethinking advertising strategy is also essential. Conversational ads like Sparky Sponsored Prompts reach consumers in a different context than traditional banners or sponsored products. Building the capability to measure and optimize ad performance through AI assistants will determine future competitiveness.

Summary

The 35% increase in order value demonstrated by Walmart's Sparky is a landmark case that proves the ROI of AI assistants in retail with concrete numbers. As competitors including Amazon Rufus, OpenAI ChatGPT, and Google Shopping AI rapidly strengthen their AI commerce capabilities, the era of intent-driven commerce — where "AI understands customer intent and recommends optimal product bundles" — has arrived.

E-commerce businesses should watch for the timing of Sparky's international expansion and how far Walmart Connect's advertising model can scale. AI assistants are evolving beyond mere search replacements into commerce infrastructure that seamlessly connects discovery, recommendation, purchase, and fulfillment end to end.