"On Tuesday, Walmart execs said they would put ads in Sparky, its AI shopping agent, as well as provide generative AI-powered performance insights and creative. There's also Marty, Walmart's agentic advertising assistant, in beta for sponsored search campaigns to help with billing and bidding, with plans to make it available widely later this year. The announcements come on the heels of Walmart's tests last year with Sparky and Marty."
"It's a play out of Amazon Ad's playbook with Rufus, which began running ads in 2024, according to commerce execs. At last year's unBoxed conference, Amazon rolled out agentic AI tools that can generate creative, build campaigns, recommend targeting and write Amazon Marketing Cloud queries using natural language, as Digiday previously reported. It's a sign of the times. Retailers like Walmart and Amazon are chasing shoppers increasingly turning to AI chatbots for shopping."
""Integrated personalized and conversational shopping experiences are likely next to become standard in consumers' heads and hearts, and rightfully so," Mike O'Donnell, svp of innovation and business transformation at Flywheel, told Digiday via email. The agentic AI playbook Walmart itself reports 81% of customers say they'd use Sparky to check product availability and review product details before making a purchase. Before Walmart's recent announcement, Walmart partnered with OpenAI to allow customers to shop with ChatGPT."
Walmart will embed ads and generative AI-powered performance insights and creative into Sparky, its AI shopping agent, and is testing Marty, an agentic advertising assistant, to assist with sponsored search billing and bidding and later roll it out broadly. The moves follow prior tests and a partnership enabling shopping via ChatGPT. Amazon has already deployed Rufus and agentic tools that generate creative, build campaigns, recommend targeting and write analytics queries. Retailers are responding to shoppers increasingly using AI chatbots, and Walmart Connect frames AI efforts around delivering measurable advertiser value.
Read at Digiday
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