Wal-Mart (WMT.US) gears up for holiday shopping season with AI-enabled personalized shopping experience

Wal-Mart (WMT.US) is gearing up for the holiday shopping season. On October 30, the retail giant announced a series of ways it will use artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) to help consumers, such as providing personalized shopping recommendations. Wal-Mart said in a press release that "in the U.S., if a customer has ever searched for board games, they may see promotions, new game releases, or gift recommendations." The company also revealed that it will use the technology to provide more relevant and personalized homepage recommendations for each shopper in the coming year. In international markets, Wal-Mart said it has already rolled out a personalized recommendation feature based on generative AI in Mexico, offering customers broader product suggestions. In addition, Wal-Mart uses AI to filter and evaluate social media influencers to ensure that the content shared on its website aligns with its brand. Other AI features at Wal-Mart include a continuously expanding generative AI shopping assistant and AI-driven checkout technology used in its Sam's Club stores. An earlier report by an external source noted that Wal-Mart and its rival Amazon (AMZN.US) are both working to use AI to improve their retail operations and customer experience. The report said, "Both are using the technology to gain a competitive advantage, but their strategies and priorities are different." The report further noted that Wal-Mart is more focused on the impact of AI on the consumer shopping experience. During its earnings call in August, Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon emphasized the importance of AI in optimizing its vast product catalog. He said, "We're finding practical ways to use generative AI to improve the experience of our customers, members, and associates. We're using data and large language models from others, as well as building our own models. For example, we've already used generative AI to improve our product catalog." In addition, earlier reports this week mentioned that the retail industry is starting to use smaller AI models, driving more streamlined systems that can process purchase orders, receipts, and shopping data while maintaining the accuracy of larger models at a lower computational cost. Steven Sermarini, senior director of engineering, data, and analytics at Radial, an e-commerce logistics and payments company, told media that "small AI models allow large retailers and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to compete fairly in inventory management and customer service automation. These models help SMBs optimize inventory levels, forecast demand, and automatically replenish, improving operational efficiency." As of writing, Wal-Mart's stock price rose 0.55% to $81.83 despite the market's decline.