By Jay Bemis | Advertising Systems Inc.
With Walmart at the forefront, retailers are busy deploying AI tools to help shoppers fill their online carts this holiday season.
So, who might be going Christmas shopping with you in the weeks ahead? Will it be Rufus, Amazon’s generative AI-powered shopping assistant who was introduced to the world last year, or will it be Sparky, Walmart’s smiley-faced icon who’s brandishing the company’s new AI tools just released this fall?
Here are some numbers that retailers are embracing to justify their leaps into the world of artificial intelligence:
- Salesforce forecasts that AI and agents will drive 21% of holiday orders globally — or an estimated $263 billion in sales — this year.
- Nearly two-thirds (64%) of global consumers expect to use AI for at least one holiday shopping-related task, according to Shopify’s 2025 Holiday Report. That proportion rises to 84% among 18- to 24-year-olds.
- One in three US holiday shoppers expects to use AI to find the best deals, while 30% of them will use it to compare products and 26% will rely on it for gift ideas or recommendations, a PayPal survey found.
What Does Walmart’s Sparky Assistant Do?
The new features in Walmart’s app are meant to make it more useful for in-store shoppers and to simplify discovery and purchasing for customers who prefer to shop online.
With Curated Shopping Lists, for example, you can just tell Sparky at the bottom of the online app what kind of event you’re hosting — be it a Thanksgiving dinner, a New Year’s party or a birthday bash — and the app will generate a tailored list of items, including food, drinks, decorations, tableware and, yes, gifts.
Want some personalized recommendations? Sparky will take into account your budget, party size and theme. You can specify such details as “a cozy dinner for 6” or “a glam New Year’s Eve party,” and Sparky will adjust the list to your specs.
Once your list is ready, the Walmart app shows you exact aisle locations for each item at your local store, a feature that’s designed to make your shopping faster and more efficient. You can save party items to your wish list, which is automatically sorted by aisle for easy pickup when you’re inside the store’s brick-and-mortar.
Meanwhile, an In-Store Savings Tool highlights such deals as Black Friday discounts and “rollbacks” at your specific Walmart location.
And, with an Audio Summaries tool, you can listen to AI-generated clips that summarize product reviews and descriptions for more than 1,000 premium beauty items, which Walmart says is “perfect for gift shopping on the go.”
Among those impressed by Walmart’s Sparky are the experts at eMarketer, who say “retailers should follow Walmart’s lead and use AI to make it easier for customers to surface deals and quickly find what they’re looking for, whether in-store or online.”
Other Retailers Unveiling New Tools
As shoppers become more accustomed to AI tools to make purchase decisions, retailers and ad experts are trying to keep up.
- Ralph Lauren has launched Ask Ralph, an “AI-powered conversational shopping experience” available to app users. Powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI, Ask Ralph delivers a personalized array of shoppable outfit ideas featuring Polo Ralph Lauren products.
- Albertsons is the first retailer to use Google Cloud’s Conversational Commerce agent in the search experience. The tool provides personalized recommendations, product discovery and even nudges for impulse purchases.
- Amazon recently launched Lens Live, an AI feature within its shopping app that scans products and shows matches in real time. Integrated with the retailer’s AI assistant Rufus, the tool suggests questions and summarizes reviews to give shoppers quick access to the information they need.
Retailers Must Develop AI Tools to Compete
The experts at eMarketer say “GenAI is both a disrupter and a gamechanger for retailers.”
“On the one hand, it lets retailers personalize the customer experience as never before, deepening relationships with their shoppers. But the growing use of AI assistants and agents could challenge companies’ ability to interact directly with customers (and monetize their data) by funneling more traffic — and buying activity — through intermediaries like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
“To avoid being left behind, retailers need their own AI tools — either built in-house or with partners like Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI — to ensure they can deliver personalized, relevant recommendations and shopping experiences. At the same time, companies need to optimize every piece of content on their sites — from product listings to reviews to FAQs — for discoverability on AI search engines to avoid falling into oblivion.”
