Walmart's homegrown AI assistant Sparky is driving a 40% lift in average order value, while its visual search function has pushed conversion 57% higher than text-based queries, U.S. President and CEO David Guggina told investors this week.

Guggina, who took the Walmart U.S. CEO post in February 2026, framed AI as the engine behind the retailer's e-commerce run. Online sales grew 24% year over year in the second quarter, the 10th consecutive quarter above 20%.

"We have been leaning into AI for quite some time — we've had physical AI in our supply chain for over seven years — and you can see it reshaping our company, reshaping our customer value proposition," Guggina said at the Goldman Sachs Global Consumer and Retail Conference, in conversation with Goldman Sachs' Katharine McShane.

What's behind Sparky's growth?

Weekly engagement with the AI assistant climbed 60% quarter over quarter, Guggina said. He framed Sparky as a driver of store execution, delivery speed, AOV and conversion, calling it "becoming more and more capable."

The 57% conversion jump came specifically from Sparky's visual search feature. Snap-a-picture discovery now outperforms text-based search on Walmart's most strategic CX metric, a data point marketers can use to argue for visual-first commerce investments.

Where does Sparky go next?

Guggina hinted at extending Sparky beyond the Walmart app into the company's Vizio and Onn electronics unit, including use cases like "helping you shop and navigate different applications on the TV." That move would put AI shopping directly on connected-TV screens — a surface Amazon has yet to colonize with its own assistant.

How does Walmart's agentic stance differ from Amazon's?

Guggina said partnerships with external agents such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini are delivering strong results. "They are most often choosing to deep link out to us, meaning they send customers our way when they see applicable context, and when they do that, we're seeing fantastic conversion rates," he said.

Amazon moved in the opposite direction last month, blocking Meta's new AI assistant Muse from browsing and transacting on its site. The retailer has taken similar action against AI agents from Perplexity, OpenAI, Anthropic and Microsoft.

Walmart's open-door policy, Guggina said, brings in many new or returning customers with a "very high" organic repeat rate. Third-party AI traffic now functions as a measurable acquisition channel — exactly the entry point Amazon has chosen to close.

What does this mean for marketers?

Guggina credited AI-driven savings for letting Walmart reinvest in pricing and customer experience, deepening ties with a "resilient" but "intentional" shopper. With Sparky's AOV and engagement still compounding, and TV-screen shopping on the horizon, the B2B takeaway is twofold: visual-first discovery inside first-party AI surfaces pays, and openness to third-party agent traffic can drive real conversion lift when a competitor is busy shutting the door.