Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart, has touted the retail giant’s generative AI search skills, which pose yet another challenge to Alphabet’s hegemony on the internet. Apple and Alphabet have both struggled to present compelling AI ideas to investors, making them two of the biggest tech losers in the stock market this year. Sergey Brin, the creator of Google, recently acknowledged that the company made mistakes with generation AI, but he said that it will work out the best business models. Analysts predict that online merchants will become more competitive in search within their ecosystems.
If Walmart has its way, that will change in the future. Currently, planning purchases for a particular event, such as recent Super Bowl parties or Valentine’s Day celebrations, may require reviewing multiple web sources or Google as the primary source.
Instead of being an online destination to look for specific things, Walmart is promoting its capacity to employ generative AI as a one-stop shop to search when you need to arrange an event. Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart, discussed the app’s generation AI search capabilities on a conference call with analysts following the company’s February earnings.
“The thing we’re most excited about that’s already happened is the way search has improved, and the way generative AI helped us really improve a solution-oriented search experience for customers and members,” McMillon said on the earnings call. “And it happened pretty quickly.”
It raises more concerns about using a search engine like Google in the future.
Walmart made a name for itself in the IT industry a long time ago. The company was able to weather years of concern about Amazon and maintain its position as a leader in the retail industry. Its shares are currently at an all-time high. According to Sucharita Kodali, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, Marc Lore, a former Amazon executive, launched Jet.com, which is the subject of the tech story the business has been promoting since it acquired the website. Walmart must constantly experiment because it is a technology company, and the cost of failure is relatively minimal when introducing generative AI search capabilities, according to her.
“It establishes them as an innovator in the space,” Kodali said. “They’re better to be a leader than a follower in their shoes. They’re operating from a position of strength.”
However, experiments can go awry. Alphabet recently experienced this when it released the Gemini gen AI before it was ready for market. Google co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledged that the business “messed up” with the launch in a rare public appearance, but he downplayed worries about the company’s future.
“I expect business models are going to evolve over time,” Brin said. “And maybe it will still be advertising because advertising could work better, the AI is able to better tailor it. … I personally feel as long as there’s huge value being generated, we’ll figure out the business models.”
