Disrupted

In both your personal and professional lives, think about how much time you spend trying to find the right information, then reading through, sorting and organizing the information from across multiple sources. It’s likely hours every week. Hours that could have been spent in more productive ways to get you closer to your final goal.

Over the past few months, with thousands of applications introduced to help with everything from text, image, video, music creation and more, generative AI (GenAI) has moved AI into the “do it for me” stage.

Our industry – every industry – is in the midst of a massive disruption and, as a technologist, the potential is incredibly exciting. We’re bringing new tech into the company, and there are very few places where we couldn’t use GenAI to make ourselves more productive. 

While GenAI seems like an overnight sensation, Walmart has been investing in this technology for several years. For example, we created our own Conversational AI platform, Converse, which we trained to speak retail … and more specifically, Walmart retail.

So, if a customer, member, or associate is using a Converse-enabled product, asking about Great Value Almond Milk, we understand they are talking about a flavor of milk, not almonds and milk, and that it’s a brand of milk, not a great value on almonds or milk. 

Today, Converse powers 22 products globally: chatbots are solving problems in a fraction of the time of calls; customers and members can be more efficient, shopping via text; and our associates use Ask Sam for more than 600,000 questions a week. 

Of course, we’re not stopping at 22. We’re particularly excited about a new tool for Walmart U.S. merchants that will enable them build the best strategies with ease and speed. We’re also moving fast to expand a Decision Assistant pilot that will transform the way our customers and members search and browse Walmart.com. 

And so much more. Teams across Walmart, Sam’s Club and Walmart International can leverage Converse as an innovation enabler, and we’re all moving fast to bring this technology into and across Walmart quickly and safely.

Our course, this is just the beginning. Walmart has long been a culture that encourages experimentation, so we’re encouraging our associates get familiar with GenAI. We’re empowering associates with GenAI tools, paired with a set of policies and guidelines aligned to our company values. 

Because we know once they come up with the ideas, we have building blocks like Converse that can help bring them to life quickly, and in a cost-efficient way.

This article was originally published by Cheryl Ainoa on LinkedIn.