June Dershewitz

TL;DR: It's fascinating to see how Walmart is using AI to transform its business with four key agents and a proprietary AI platform, it's embracing the times by moving from a traditional retailer to a tech-driven powerhouse. Longer Version: This is mind blowing when you think about it...because we don't normally think of Walmart as a "tech" company... and this isn't just about adding chatbots to a website. Walmart is deploying a quartet of AI agents: Sparky, Marty, the Associate Agent, and the Developer Agent, to create a unified, intelligent system. Sparky (for customers, providing personalized recommendations and automatic reordering) Marty (for operational tasks) Associate Agent (for employees, handling administrative duties like payroll and time-off requests) Developer Agent (WIBEY, for developers to enhance coding and software delivery) - to improve efficiency and personalization for customers, employees, suppliers, and developers. From optimizing supply chains with digital twins to improving the customer experience with machine learning, this is a top-to-bottom evolution. The company even has its own proprietary AI platform, Element. The most fascinating part of this story is the mindset. Instead of just reacting to competitors, Walmart is building a foundation for the future. It proves that even a massive retail giant can be agile and embrace bleeding edge tech to improve the customer experience when the stakes are high. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/g_Tk3-w8 #Walmart #AI #RetailTech #DigitalTransformation #Innovation

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TL:DR - Where do you think shopping is headed in an AI driven ecosystem? Want to hear your thoughts. --- One of the things I've done with the University of Washington and specifically Shailendra Pratap Jain's class is once a quarter I come and lead a lecture/conversation with his class. The general gist of the lecture is how marketing + retail is evolving digitally. 7, 8, 9 years ago, or whenever the heck I did it first - the conversation was obviously very different than it is now. Now, everyone wants to talk about AI. And I posed a question that I posed here some time ago. On one side of the other room - there is what I call "The Jaded Capitalists". They believe that the ChatGPT, Perplexity of the worlds aren't going to fundamentally alter the shopping experience... we'll just have another huge player in the advertising space - similarly to Google Meta and Apple before them. On the other side of the room - there is what I call "The Agentic Futurists". Shopping will be forever altered. I will have an agent, you will have an agent, and all the brands will have an agents - and we will shop without even being involved as our agentic shoppers curry favors amongst brands and marketplaces to find the best items at the best prices. And I asked these Technical MBA students to pick a side. And a CRAZY thing happened: It was right. down. the middle. About 50% on one side, 50% on the other. I'm going to tag some of the students in this post and would love for them to chime in with their POV - but would love to hear from all of you as well. How is shopping going to change in an AI dominated universe, and why? Rajesh Turlapati Brenton Mizell David Crow Shirin Hallaji Kovid G. Arlo Magpoc Jagadish Kulkarni Thi A. Van Jiaqi Liu Lucy (Melbinger) Grubbe

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Rethinking Tradeoffs in the Age of AI I was recently asked to speak at a conference about ROI, and as I was preparing my remarks, I noticed something interesting: most of the questions I was grappling with weren't really about ROI calculations—they were fundamentally about tradeoffs. For decades, business strategy has been defined by these tradeoffs. You could have fast, cheap, or good—but rarely all three. Companies built their competitive advantage by choosing which corner of the triangle to own. But what happens when AI fundamentally changes this equation? Take Vistaprint's breakthrough with mass customization in printed materials. They didn't just optimize within the traditional tradeoff framework—they redefined it entirely. By leveraging technology to deliver personalized products at scale, they proved that the "you can't have it all" mentality wasn't a law of physics, just a limitation of existing systems. At Kore.ai, we've seen this firsthand with clients scaling their business models. The companies achieving transformational ROI aren't just deploying AI—they're using it to fundamentally reshape their approach. That's when "and" starts showing up in their ROI models instead of "or." They're achieving cost reduction AND improved customer experience. Faster processing AND higher accuracy. Scale AND personalization. Now AI is poised to shatter tradeoffs across industries. When intelligent automation can unlock 10%+ OpEx savings while simultaneously improving quality and speed, we're not just optimizing—we're operating in an entirely new paradigm. The question isn't "What tradeoff should we make?" anymore. It's "What tradeoffs can we eliminate?" Companies that recognize this shift first will build tomorrow's competitive moats. Those still thinking in terms of traditional either/or choices risk being left behind by competitors who've moved to "both/and" thinking. What tradeoffs in your industry do you think AI will make obsolete? #Kore.ai#AI #BusinessStrategy #Innovation #Transformation

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