Retail AI Agents Move From Experiment to Growth Engine
Retail AI agents are rapidly evolving from experimental chatbots into core drivers of AI-powered sales growth. Instead of handling only basic customer inquiries, new agentic AI shopping systems can guide product discovery, personalize recommendations, and increasingly influence how inventories are positioned and orders are fulfilled. This shift underpins a broader move toward conversational commerce, where natural-language interactions replace rigid search boxes and menu navigation. Retailers are combining first-party customer data, product catalogs, and behavioral signals so agents can make context-aware suggestions in real time. Early adopters are reporting tangible commercial outcomes, from higher average order value to stronger engagement and repeat purchasing. As these systems become embedded across apps, websites, and even physical stores, they are redefining what a digital sales assistant can do—acting less like a scripted chatbot and more like an adaptive co-pilot for both shoppers and internal retail teams.
Walmart’s Sparky: Agentic AI That Lifts AOV and Units Sold
Walmart’s Sparky shows how retail AI agents can translate engagement into measurable performance gains. Leadership says Sparky’s weekly active users more than doubled in the last quarter, while improvements to its intelligence and response quality have made it more useful day by day. Customers who shop with the Sparky AI agent exhibit an average order value about 35% higher than non-users, and units purchased through Sparky have more than quadrupled versus the prior fiscal quarter. Initially focused on general merchandise discovery, Sparky now supports everyday essentials like food and consumables, as well as personalized replenishment and meal planning. The agent is available across Walmart’s ecommerce site, mobile app, and stores, with features such as automatic reordering for repeat purchases and Spanish-language support. This deep integration illustrates how agentic AI shopping experiences can boost both basket size and product mix, not just session-level engagement.
Beyond the Front End: AI Agents in Supply Chain and Retail Media
Walmart’s AI investments extend beyond consumer-facing assistance into the operational fabric of its business. Executives describe using AI to improve how inventory is positioned, make faster fulfillment decisions, and serve customers in real time, layered on top of earlier supply chain investments. These capabilities give AI agents growing influence over autonomous decisions about where products should sit, how orders should be routed, and which options can be delivered fastest. On the revenue side, Walmart is also deploying AI in its advertising toolkit. New features help ad buyers dynamically adjust content mixes to optimize campaign performance, while expanding reach through connected TV surfaces such as Vizio’s platform. Advertising revenue grew more than a third in the latest quarter and was cited as a key driver of ecommerce growth, signaling that agentic AI is becoming a lever for margin-rich retail media as well as logistics efficiency.
DICK’S Sporting Goods Turns Coaching Expertise into Conversational Commerce
DICK’S Sporting Goods is applying agentic AI to turn its in-store expertise into a scalable digital coaching experience. Coach by DICK’S, integrated into the retailer’s mobile app, is a conversational AI designed to support athletes throughout their sports journeys with tailored recommendations, training guidance, and product education. Built on Adobe Brand Concierge and DICK’S proprietary sport knowledge, the assistant uses natural-language conversations to adapt to each athlete’s sport, goals, interests, and preferences in real time. It surfaces Pro Tips, explains equipment choices, and helps customers navigate products and services with more confidence. Leaders say the experience is meant to go beyond transactional shopping, extending the brand’s point of view and human guidance into a more immersive, agentic AI shopping environment. The rollout beginning in June will be followed by additional functionality, reflecting an evolving platform rather than a one-off feature launch.
From Service Automation to Full-Funnel Agentic AI Shopping
The emergence of Sparky and Coach by DICK’S underscores a wider transformation in how retailers use AI. Early efforts focused on customer service automation—deflecting support tickets and handling simple FAQs. Now, retail AI agents are embedded across the full customer journey: discovery, evaluation, purchase, and even training or usage guidance. At the same time, agentic systems are increasingly connected to back-end inventory, fulfillment, and advertising engines, allowing them to influence supply chain and marketing decisions in near real time. Retailers like DICK’S are pairing these front-end experiences with broader AI investments in inventory management, RFID automation, and omnichannel systems. This convergence highlights the ROI potential of agentic AI beyond cost savings. When conversational commerce is tied to robust data and operational automation, AI agents become growth drivers—lifting average order values, deepening brand loyalty, and enabling more autonomous, data-driven retail operations.
