By Mitchell Parton  •  February 23, 2026  •

Ivy Liu

Sparky is a shopping assistant housed in the “Ask Sparky” button marked by a smiley face in the Walmart app. As the company described in a news release when it launched in June, the assistant helps customers find items, synthesize reviews and prepare for special occasions, such as by answering what sports teams are playing that night or checking the weather at the beach they’re headed to. The company also launched an assistant for merchants called Wally last March.

“I love how Sparky perfectly fits within our omnichannel strategy; it connects digital intent to fulfillment through forward-deployed inventory and 1.5 million associates here in the U.S.,” Furner said. “When Sparky builds a basket, we execute it through fast delivery, pickup or in-store, turning AI engagement into immediate physical outcomes.”

Roughly half of Walmart’s app users have used Sparky, said Walmart U.S. president and CEO David Guggina, who this month was promoted to that position after serving as Walmart U.S.’s chief e-commerce officer.

“Sparky is essentially helping us evolve from traditional search to intent-driven commerce,” Guggina said in the earnings call, adding that the company continues to add new capabilities, more personalization and deeper contextual understanding. “From an economic standpoint, better discovery and higher conversion translates into bigger baskets and greater frequency. … Sparky is helping customers find the things they need, they want and they love, and it’s strengthening our digital unit economics as it scales.”

Sparky is currently only available in the U.S., but the company hopes to eventually scale Sparky to other markets globally, Furner said.

“The pace of change in retail is accelerating,” Furner said. “For Walmart, the future is fast, convenient and personalized, and I’m challenging our teams to move even faster as the opportunities with AI become broader and deeper.”

Walmart is building its technology platforms to deliver consistent experiences across markets, Furner also said. He added that the company is layering AI on top of existing platforms to better leverage its existing assets, which “helps us scale innovation consistently and reduce capital intensity.”

Furner said Sparky is quickly becoming, as it learns new skills, a way for Walmart to understand customer intent better than it had been able to in the past.

“What Sparky can do is it can help understand really clearly what it is that you’re trying to accomplish in your life, whether that’s a birthday party, or a camping trip, or planning meals for the week, or just planning dinner for this evening,” Furner said. “And then, we can generate you great, unique solutions real-time if we need to, or by knowing you a bit better than we did in the past, we can help suggest things to you that are more in line with your own personal preferences.”

In addition to its AI shopping features on its website and mobile app, Walmart is also partnering with OpenAI and Google to simultaneously invest in AI shopping through a partnerships approach. This is in contrast to Amazon, which has focused on investing in its own AI capabilities rather than working with other tech companies.

The open partnerships approach “lets tech companies do what they do best, develop innovative technology,” Walmart CFO John David Rainey said during the earnings call. “It provides us clarity to do what we do best, to translate the best of tech to retail experiences that create value for our customers and members, and our enterprise.”