Walmart Embeds Sparky in ChatGPT After Checkout Flop
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- Walmart's Instant Checkout in ChatGPT, live since November with about 200,000 products, flopped — conversion rates were 3x lower for items sold directly in-chat versus those requiring a click-out, per EVP Daniel Danker
- Walmart is now embedding its Sparky chatbot inside ChatGPT next week and Google Gemini next month, with baskets syncing across the Walmart app, website, and chatbot to solve the multi-item checkout problem
- Top sellers in Instant Checkout were vitamin and protein supplements — partly because people new to GLP-1 weight-loss drugs were advised to increase nutrient intake — with automotive, beauty, home management, hardware, and tools making up over half of orders
- ChatGPT is driving twice the rate of new customers to Walmart as search engines, per Danker, who suspects the typical ChatGPT power user isn't a typical Walmart shopper
- Sparky was built by Walmart using open-source generative AI models combined with retail-specific models trained on decades of Walmart data; half of Walmart app users have engaged with it, and Sparky users spend about 35% more per order, per US CEO David Guggina
- Walmart has not blocked other AI agents from shopping on its site, contrasting with Amazon's recent temporary court order barring Perplexity from automated purchases
Why it matters: Walmart's 3x-lower in-chatbot conversion is the first hard data point undercutting OpenAI's 'agentic commerce' pitch to retailers. The pivot to Sparky-inside-ChatGPT reframes the bet: rather than OpenAI owning the checkout moment, the winning pattern may be retailers wrapping their own assistants into AI interfaces — and Walmart's openness to third-party AI agents shows it isn't trying to wall off the channel the way Amazon is.
