As part of their ongoing mission to help clients stay ahead of the competition in a fast-paced, constantly evolving marketplace, the field teams in Publicis Commerce’s Retail Consultancy closely monitor the strategic activity taking place across all key retailers and channels.
Each month, the teams compile Marketplace Assessment reports on the retailers (including Walmart, Target, Amazon, and Kroger) and channels (such as Regional Grocery, C-Store, Club, Pet, Beauty, and On-Demand Delivery) that are most important to the business success of our clients. (To receive copies of the full reports, contact EVP-Retail Consultancy Kandi Arrington at [email protected].)
The following is a special “Hot Drop” on significant industry news that followed fast on the heels of another major industry announcement: Walmart’s plans to integrate with OpenAI’s newly unveiled “Instant Checkout” direct-purchase feature.
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Walmart and Sam’s Club shoppers will soon be able to make purchases within OpenAI’s ChatGPT using the answer engine’s new “Instant Checkout” functionality, which this month began directly facilitating single-product purchases but will expand to multi-item carts at an unspecified date.
Walmart’s integration is the beginning of a partnership that will create AI-first shopping experiences, according to the retailer. “There is a native AI experience coming that is multi-media, personalized, and contextual. We are running towards that more enjoyable and convenient future with Sparky [Walmart’s in-house AI shopping assistant] and through partnerships, including this important step with OpenAI,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said in a corporate news post.
As part of its investment with OpenAI, the retailer is rolling out an enterprise-grade ChatGPT subscription to teams across its organization and developing a customized AI certification program for employees.
Relevance: Jason Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis Groupe, offered the following perspective on the news:
“More consumers are turning to answer engines like ChatGPT every day to answer questions that they used to ask Google. OpenAI tells us they process more than 50 million user prompts every day, specifically about purchasable products. And now with Instant Checkout, the friction between product consideration and purchase has been significantly reduced.
“Walmart has consistently been a first mover in embracing AI — earlier this year, the retailer revealed its own four “super agent” framework. So, it’s no surprise that Walmart is one of the first merchants to embrace Instant Checkout. This decision was probably made easier by OpenAI’s elegant ACP (agentic commerce protocol) architecture, which preserves Walmart’s status as merchant of record.
“Walmart has stated publicly that the initial catalog will include apparel, entertainment, packaged foods, and other products from both the flagship and Sam’s Club chains, as well as items from the retailer’s third-party marketplace. It won’t include fresh foods. It remains to be seen how extensive the offering will be; Walmart currently has more than 420 million items on its website.
“It also will be very interesting to see what the feed that Walmart provides to OpenAI will look like. Will it be the traditional feed that’s used to populate the product detail pages on Walmart.com? Or will it be enriched with additional attributes that are important to commerce agents? Walmart conceivably could enrich its agentic product feed with learnings from Sparky.
“Initially, I wouldn’t expect ChatGPT to cannibalize many existing Walmart.com transactions, since most Walmart shoppers purchase more than a single item. Many also want to schedule home delivery (of groceries), use their Walmart+ accounts, and take advantage of many other Walmart amenities that are not yet supported through Instant Checkout. So, for now, I expect it to mostly generate incremental purchases for single items.
“Nevertheless, Walmart is smart to be wherever its consumers want to shop, and to be testing and learning across all these new shopping behaviors. This very likely will not be the last agentic commerce experience we see Walmart lean into — and commerce is never going to be the same.”
(Goldberg recently took a deeper dive into the ways brands and retailers should prepare for agentic AI-driven search in this special report. He and fellow Publicis Commerce experts also offer various takes on the topic in Publicis Commerce’s Groceryshop recap.)
Opportunity: Brands should test and learn alongside Walmart as it leans into agentic commerce experiences. Work with your Walmart partners to track which SKUs will go live first and what product information Walmart might be providing to OpenAI. As consumers continue to adopt advanced search platforms, understanding the new rules of product discovery — as well as what shopper insights and marketing levers become available — will be critical.
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Publicis Commerce’s Retail Consultancy is an unrivaled team of in-market commerce experts who simplify the complexity of retail for our clients. Located in Bentonville, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Chicago, Seattle and the “backyards” of other key retailers, they provide deep knowledge of the retailer, expertise in key business areas (like strategy, media and creative), and door-opening personal relationships with key executives to deliver an unmatched level of business success for clients across accounts, channels, and shopper engagement platforms. For more information, contact EVP-Retail Consultancy Kandi Arrington at [email protected].
