My latest in today's print edition of The Wall Street Journal goes deep inside Walmart's AI journey, looking at why the retail giant is choosing now to make a hard pivot. AI agents are massively hyped right now, and it's true their value can be huge -- but only if companies go about the deployment exactly right. That's what Walmart is now realizing. Over the last few months, it's built dozens of AI agents for employees, customers and suppliers. But it found that the interfaces were getting so varied and confusing, people weren't always using them to their fullest potential. Now, Suresh Kumar, Walmart’s chief technology officer and chief development officer, said the retail giant is looking to simplify. It will consolidate all its agents into four discrete interfaces it calls “super agents.” One is for customers, one is for employees, one is for engineers, and one is for sellers and suppliers. The super agent for each group will tap the capabilities of a number of behind-the-scenes agents, all in a single unified experience. “If I have an agent that helps you with your payroll and I have a different agent that helps you with identifying merchandising trends, you shouldn’t have to remember that and switch between those two," Kumar said. What do you think? How should we think about deploying agents in a way that will actually drive meaningful value rather than just checking a box? Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eSYyqZWX
Unifying your AI and this starts with unifying systems, then data, then automations, then applications and finally agents. Each layer beneath another. Hence “UnifyApps”! This is being done at scale without having to spend millions internally on trial and error. Utilized UnifyApps AI Native enterprise building platform. It’s as good as it sounds.
This is insightful and hope to see more insights in converge - https://walmart.converge.tech/content/converge/en_in/converge-registration.html?referrerId=lIiIfLJ
💡 Great insight
Well, this will be a super interesting case to follow. It’s certainly ambitious, but I think they’re going in with the right mindset: focusing on the user experience and factoring in both the strengths and limitations of AI. I hope you’ll do a follow-up article in some time to see how they’ve progressed.
Thank you so much for covering our story and following our journey! Looking forward to continuing to work together!
Loved this inside look at how even tech giants can end up with a bit of “too many cooks in the chatbot kitchen.” Streamlining dozens of agents into unified super agents is the kind of no-nonsense move that actually makes AI helpful instead of headache-inducing—no more digital treasure hunts just to find your payroll bot. For companies that want all the AI muscle without multiplying confusion, https://www.chat-data.com/ lets you nest multiple chatbots into a single, branded interface. Whether you’re helping employees, suppliers, or customers, everything’s orchestrated behind the scenes for one seamless user experience. No more remembering which agent does what—just one front door to all your workflows.
Isabelle Bousquette very interesting!
this was a really good read
Good article. Everytime a new technology emerges the initial shift focus on the technology/product itself. Eventually the focus turns into the user experience to solve problems. I think the article captures the tip of the iceberg and we will see significant movement in that direction from all of us. Thanks for sparking the conversation.
Really thoughtful piece, Isabelle Bousquette. This shift toward “super agents” is a smart move, and it reflects what we’re seeing across the enterprise landscape. At NeuBird, we’ve learned that agents only drive value when they’re embedded into how people already work—not bolted on. If an agent feels like yet another tool, it won’t get used, no matter how powerful it is. The key is to treat agents like new hires: they need to be trained, trusted, and tailored to the domain they support. And above all, context matters—agents are only as good as their ability to surface the right data to reason over. Great to see the conversation moving beyond hype to real usability and trust. – Gou