Inside Walmart’s integration with ChatGPT | Fast Five Shorts

Walmart has debuted an in store app experience inside ChatGPT, backed by its Sparky commerce agent.

According to Retail Dive, the revamped walmart experience inside ChatGPT keeps the entire transaction on Walmart's own infrastructure.

Users log into their Walmart account, their baskets sync across the Walmart app, website and chatgpt, and checkout happens through Walmart, not through OpenAI.

That's the key point here.

The move also follows a frank admission from Walmart's EVP Daniel Danker that OpenAI's instant checkout was, quote, unsatisfying.

That's a big omission because conversion rates for products sold directly inside the chatbot were running three times lower than for products that required clickout to Walmart's own site.

Oh boy.

Walmart, it should be noted, had made approximately 200,000 products available inside ChatGPT via instant checkout since November.

But the feature struggled with accuracy because product availability, estimated delivery times and shipping costs were often wrong because OpenAI was scraping Walmart's site rather than connecting to live inventory data.

Surprisingly lot here folks.

Surprisingly.

OpenAI said it is also ending instant checkout in its current form.

Not surprised.

And expanding its agentic commerce protocol, AKA the ACP that everyone keeps talking about, to focus on product discovery while giving merchants full control of their own checkout experience.

Wow, that is a big shift to what we had been talking about previously on old shows.

All right Jenna, Walmart pretty much just admitted that conversion rates inside its AI inside AI chatbots like OpenAI are three times lower than when people go to their own site.

So.

But do you as a user find any value in a self contained GPT experience?

And producer Ella, get ready too because I want to bring you in on this one as well.

But Jenna, what do you think first?

Yeah, I think this actually validates what a lot of us suspected, at least I have is people don't necessarily want to complete transactions inside of AI and I'm one of those.

Discovery yes, checkout not really.

And a three times lower conversion rate is pretty telling.

I think from a user perspective I don't see the huge advantage.

If I'm ready to buy, I trust the retailer's app and site more anyways and it feels like an extra step depth versus a better experience.

So I think what this really signals is we're still very early in an agentic commerce.

This is more about search evolution than transaction evolution.

But I think it's smart for Walmart to test and learn.

I just, I think the real opportunity is owning the experience end to end.

And really it's don't outsource the last mile of conversion.

Yeah, I, I agree with you.

This one is this, this whole world and landscape is just really, it's conversation.

It's confounding to me in terms of how it's starting to play out, because I think it, there's a number.

I agree with everything you said and the things that I thought about when I read this article is number one, which I think is important to say.

The world of truly agentic commerce, where you're having an agent doing the shopping for you, is really far out.

Like, we can't even get checkout right, you know, right now, folks.

So and so that tells me that really what we're talking about right now in the near term is we're looking at a shift in how search commerce is done.

Because I think that's what you're saying, Jenna, right?

Like, yeah, I want to use ChatGPT to search for products, but then I want it to land me on the Walmart site because that's where I'm going to have confidence and, you know, I'll just check out through them.

The second thing it tells me, though, is I still have a lot of questions, as I did when Target did the same thing back in the holidays of putting the, if putting the app inside ChatGPT is the right move because, Jenna, like you said, it's disjointed.

If I want to ask the LLM to take me to Walmart, can I just as easily open the Walmart app on my phone and use Sparking within it?

So I don't really get the added value and that would probably just convert higher because I'm already intending to go to that Walmart app to begin with, so.

So I don't really get that unless it, you know, unless it can like filter everything out for me against Walmart and everyone else.

If I'm having to contain myself in the Walmart experience, that doesn't seem like it provides any utility to me, again, you know, provided what the LLMs are supposed to do.

So I don't.

The problem I have with this is I don't get what the incentive is other than just dipping your toes in the water.

And I don't really see the value of the experimentation to dip your toes in the water.

And so I would just, I would instead just probably focus on getting ready for the ACP and its improvements that happen once that comes about.

But I don't know.

Ella.

Bring you back in here, Jenna.

I'M curious, like, how, how do you guys.

How are you actually using ChatGPT to shop?

Ella?

Yeah, well, a couple things here.

I feel like I keep hearing retailers implementing their sites going directly into ChatGPT, but I personally have still yet to see it.

First of all, like, I don't know where.

Hard to find.

Hard to find.

I know Target, when that was a big headline, I could not find it to save my life.

And I feel like going back to Shop Talk.

Chris.

There was a lot of talk about invisible AI and how the best rollout might just be making the user experience within your own site better because that's what people want.

I mean, I agree, Jenna.

We're using Chat GBT for discovery and inspiration and trying to find, oh, I can compare this to this, and why would I buy this?

And then ultimately going back to the site and making that final decision.

So I completely agree with both of you.

Yeah.

And that's what I've always said on the show.

I've always said, like, I would be focusing on bolstering natural language church on my own site before anything for that reason.

I think that's right, Ella.

I think we're getting to the answers here, you know, over the, over the past few months.

Jenna, any final thoughts here before we go to the lightning round?

Yeah, I mean, you mentioned, like, what's the point of it?

I guess I could say there's, there's maybe something to early adoption for a company like Walmart.

Sure.

And testing the waters a little bit.

But again, I think my bottom line is, is I trust the website and I don't know that I need it to be completely integrated that way.