Walmart is moving ahead with an ambitious plan to train its entire global workforce of around 2.1 million employees in artificial intelligence, as the retailer seeks to embed AI more deeply into everyday operations and improve the overall customer experience.
Speaking at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech AI summit, Executive Vice-President and Chief People Officer Donna Morris described the company as “people-led, tech powered”, highlighting how Walmart has been steadily building its AI capabilities since the emergence of generative AI in 2022.
By 2023, the retailer had already introduced an internal platform allowing associates to experiment with AI tools, before consolidating and expanding its approach into a more structured ecosystem. Today, Walmart operates multiple AI agent platforms combining both in-house systems and external large language models, designed to support a wide range of functions across the business.
Morris told International Supermarket News (ISN) that the objective is to remove friction from day-to-day workflows and ensure that AI becomes a practical tool for all employees, not just those in technology roles. She emphasised that while Walmart employs more than 35,000 people in its technology division, the impact of AI is now being extended across every layer of the organisation—from corporate teams to frontline store associates.
The initiative reflects a broader shift in global retail, where AI is increasingly being positioned not only as a back-end efficiency tool but as a core driver of productivity, decision-making, and customer engagement.