Walmart’s Agentic AI Push Signals a Turning Point for Walmart Connect Advertisers

Walmart Is Reframing How Advertisers Interact With Retail Media

Walmart has made no secret of its ambition to lead in retail media, but its latest moves suggest a deeper transformation is underway. In a January 2026 Walmart Connect blog post, Khurrum Malik, Vice President of Business and Product Marketing, outlined how artificial intelligence is becoming central to how advertisers plan, execute, and measure campaigns across Walmart’s ecosystem.

At the center of that strategy is a new agentic AI advertising assistant designed to help brands run smarter and more efficient campaigns. Internally referred to as Marty, the assistant represents a shift away from static dashboards and toward conversational, context-aware decision support.

Rather than forcing advertisers to navigate layers of reports, the assistant allows users to ask direct questions about campaign performance and receive actionable guidance in response. This approach reflects a broader belief inside Walmart that reducing friction and speeding up insight generation is now essential as retail media grows more complex.

What the Advertising Assistant Does Today

According to Walmart Connect, the advertising assistant was first introduced in mid-2025 and is currently available in beta for Sponsored Search campaigns. Through a conversational chat interface, advertisers can receive guidance on bidding strategies, keyword performance, billing questions, and optimization opportunities, along with personalized alerts tied to their specific accounts.

Walmart has also disclosed that advertisers can use the assistant to access advanced research views through chat, including performance change analysis, impression share of voice, keyword-level share of voice, and category benchmark opportunity insights.

One detail shared by Walmart stands out. The company reports that nearly all advertiser queries submitted through the assistant are unique, which suggests brands are using the tool in highly customized ways rather than relying on generic prompts. For Walmart suppliers and sellers managing different categories, assortments, and competitive dynamics, this level of personalization matters.

Walmart has stated that the assistant will become available to all Sponsored Search advertisers in the Walmart Connect Ad Center during the first half of 2026, with additional capabilities introduced over time.

Why Walmart Is Investing in Agentic AI

In its own words, Walmart Connect sees AI as a way to fundamentally improve how advertising works, not just automate existing tasks. Malik described a future where AI removes operational friction, improves performance, and connects brands with shoppers in more predictive and accountable ways.

This philosophy helps explain why Walmart is focusing on agentic AI rather than isolated automation tools. An agentic system is designed to recommend, act, and learn continuously, which aligns with the realities of retail media where performance can shift quickly due to inventory changes, pricing updates, promotions, and competitive activity.

For advertisers, this means less time spent troubleshooting and more time focused on strategy and creative problem-solving. For Walmart, it creates a platform that is easier to scale while still delivering account-specific guidance.

How This Fits Into Walmart’s Broader AI Roadmap

The advertising assistant is part of a much larger AI strategy that Walmart is building across both shopper-facing and advertiser-facing experiences.

Walmart Connect has confirmed that it is testing advertising formats within Sparky, Walmart’s AI-powered shopping assistant. These early tests began in fall 2025 and are designed to explore how brands can engage shoppers inside conversational and AI-first discovery experiences. Walmart has noted that a significant share of customers already use Sparky to check product availability and review specifications, making it a natural entry point for future commerce and advertising innovation.

At the same time, Walmart is applying generative AI to transform omnichannel retail data into clearer and more actionable intelligence. This includes automated end-of-campaign reports and path-to-conversion insights that help advertisers understand how media influences shopper behavior across channels. Walmart has indicated these reporting capabilities are expected to be available in the Walmart Connect Ad Center in fiscal year 2027.

Creative production is another area of focus. Walmart is using generative AI to help advertisers quickly produce ready-to-activate creative assets, including lifestyle imagery and brand shop content. The company has said these tools can dramatically reduce creative production time, which is especially relevant for sellers managing large catalogs or frequent item updates.

Behind the scenes, Walmart is also using AI to scale internal support for brands. This includes research assistants that synthesize documents for faster insights and automated brand-specific newsletters generated through Walmart’s associate-focused AI tools. While these capabilities are not always visible to advertisers, they reinforce Walmart’s emphasis on speed, consistency, and strategic guidance.

What This Means for Walmart Suppliers and Sellers

For suppliers and sellers advertising through Walmart Connect, the implications extend beyond a single beta tool.

First, the bar for engagement is rising. As Walmart introduces more conversational and insight-driven capabilities, advertisers who actively interact with the platform are likely to unlock more value than those who rely on periodic reporting and manual optimization cycles.

Second, retail media teams may need to rethink how they work. As AI takes on more of the analytical and diagnostic burden, teams can shift their focus toward higher-level decisions, such as aligning media strategy with inventory flow, pricing actions, and assortment priorities. This is particularly important at Walmart, where in-stock position and operational execution have a direct impact on media performance.

Finally, this development reinforces the importance of first-party data and closed-loop measurement. Walmart’s ability to connect advertising exposure to real shopper behavior across digital and physical channels is a core advantage, and AI is becoming the mechanism that makes that data usable at scale.

A Clear Signal of Where Retail Media Is Headed

Walmart’s own vision for AI-powered retail media is expansive. The company has spoken openly about creative that adapts automatically across formats, campaigns that optimize in real time based on predicted intent, and measurement that evolves from retrospective reporting to predictive insight.

For Walmart suppliers and sellers, the takeaway is not that AI replaces strategy or human judgment. Instead, AI is becoming the operating layer that shapes how quickly insights surface, how confidently decisions are made, and how effectively spend is optimized.

What to Watch Next

As Walmart rolls out its agentic advertising assistant more broadly in 2026, the most successful advertisers are likely to be those who treat it as a strategic partner rather than a support tool. The platform is moving toward continuous optimization and conversational decision-making, and that shift will reward teams that adapt early.

Walmart is still in the early stages of this transformation, but the direction is clear. Retail media at Walmart is becoming more intelligent, more connected, and more accountable. For suppliers and sellers, understanding and embracing that evolution will be essential to staying competitive in the years ahead.

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