Walmart's Sparky Is Up 70% in Users While Driving 40% Higher Orders

When a Walmart customer asked Sparky, its AI Assistant, for a weekly meal plan of healthy high-protein foods, the AI did two things. It returned recipes and meal kits with the ability to add all the needed ingredients to the basket in one click. 

It also checked what the customer had already bought, online and in-store, and left those items out. That is the Sparky capability CEO John Furner disclosed on Walmart's Q2 FY2027 earnings call on August 20.

That cross-channel purchase history is the capability that explains the 40% higher order value. Sparky is building a unified picture of what a customer actually has, what they regularly buy, and what they are likely to need next, drawing on both digital and physical purchase data simultaneously, according to the company.

"The number of customers using Sparky is up 70% from last year, and the customers and members who use Sparky for shopping spend 40% more per order than others who don't," Furner said on the call. "It's building trust."

The latest figure is up from Q1 FY2027, when Furner disclosed that Sparky users had an average order value 35% higher than non-users.

In Q1, the Sparky-attributed value of goods sold increased by 150% year over year. An internal Walmart survey conducted in August found that 81% of customers used Sparky to check product availability or review product specifications before making a purchase, confirming that Sparky users are intent-driven shoppers further along in the purchase journey, not casual browsers.

Agentic Experiences and the Associate Productivity Layer

CFO John David Rainey listed "leading in agentic experiences" among Walmart's strategic priorities in his prepared remarks. The statement came alongside priorities covering eCommerce, platform businesses, membership and advertising. 

The agentic framing describes a fundamentally different relationship between the customer and the shopping process. Sparky's current capability, building a meal plan, populating a cart, and recognizing what the customer already owns, sits at the threshold between AI assistance and AI agency. 

The customer initiates the interaction, but Sparky completes the task. Rainey's explicit naming of agentic experiences as a strategic priority signals where Walmart expects that capability to go.

Walmart has already taken one significant step in that direction. Starting the week of March 25, 2026, Sparky began operating within ChatGPT. Whatever a shopper adds through ChatGPT syncs directly with their Walmart app cart and Walmart.com activity, the full basket moves together rather than fragmenting across separate transactions. Discovery can start inside ChatGPT. The checkout experience remains Walmart's.

AI is also operating at the associate level. Rainey confirmed that Walmart leveraged wages in Q2 through increased usage of tech tools by store associates alongside streamlined inventory flow from supply chain automation. 

The wage leverage is the financial outcome, but the disclosure also confirms that AI adoption across Walmart's 2.1 million associate workforce is at a scale material enough to affect the company's SG&A structure.

The Supply Chain Numbers

The automation scale behind Walmart's eCommerce performance is verified from the call. 3,100 US stores, out of approximately 4,600 total, are now served with some level of automated freight. 

More than 50% of eCommerce fulfillment volume flows through automated facilities. The number of units delivered in less than 30 minutes doubled year over year. 70% of all eCommerce orders now arrive same-day or better. Fast delivery in the US grew 48% for the quarter. Sub-30 minute delivery has now been expanded to 38 US markets.

Walmart's AI shopping strategy sits alongside its investments in fulfillment and delivery. The company has previously described its approach as combining AI-powered shopping with its retail infrastructure, including delivery capabilities.

Walmart Data Ventures, the company's retail intelligence platform, also received a specific disclosure. Rainey confirmed that users value the platform's enhanced decision intelligence capabilities, which uncovered shared growth opportunities across Walmart's formats and markets. 

The Scintilla platform, which powers supplier analytics, is being extended to Sam's Club US next year, described as one of the top requests from Walmart's supplier base.

Walmart raised its full-year sales guidance to 4%-5% from 3.5%-4.5% previously, and raised full-year EPS guidance to 2.80-2.87 from 2.75-2.85. Global advertising grew 38%, Walmart Connect grew 43%, Marketplace US net sales grew 52%, and Walmart+ membership income grew 17% globally.