Pioneering Adaptive Retail through the responsible use of data and technology

In today’s digital age, customer preferences are rapidly changing and becoming more sophisticated. Customers are increasingly seeking personalization, convenience and instant gratification in their shopping experiences. They want the ability to shop anytime, anywhere and through any device or platform. 

This new era of retail–Adaptive Retail–is guided by the needs and desires of the customer, making retail available to them precisely when and how they prefer. It’s the next phase of omnichannel retail and with technologies like AI/ML, GenAI, spatial awareness and AR at the center of delivering on Adaptive Retail, customer trust is perhaps even more paramount in this environment. 

At Walmart, our journey toward delivering Adaptive Retail experiences is rooted in our unwavering commitment to our core values of service, excellence, integrity and respect for the individual. Considering Walmart’s global scale, the broad scope of industry data protection standards and protocols, compliance obligations and the rapid introduction of new technologies, it's a complicated task. 

At the core of our Adaptive Retail strategy is the trust of our customers. Building and maintaining this trust is not just essential; it's foundational to our approach. We understand that our customers entrust us with their data and we take this responsibility seriously. Our commitment to responsible data use is a key factor in delivering on our promise of Adaptive Retail. Through data and our responsible use of it, we’re able to understand our customers and their needs better, which fuels our innovation for our customers. 

Our approach to innovation and delivering an Adaptive Retail experience center around our four Digital Trust Commitments, which guide us as we navigate the ever-changing tech landscape:

A closer look at our approach

Our Digital Citizenship and Information Security teams work tirelessly to ensure we're living up to our Digital Trust Commitments while protecting against cybersecurity risks. Together, we provide recurring information security and data privacy training to associates, and are proud that approximately 1.4 million U.S. associates have completed trainings in our focus areas.

We believe tech usage should be clear and accessible to our customers. We aim to build and deploy technology in a way that emphasizes customer and associate choice while being scalable, free of bias and flexible.

Walmart’s GenAI-powered shopping assistant asks intelligent follow-up questions to help customers identify the best product options for what they’re looking for.

Sam’s Club’s autonomous floor scrubbers use AI to give Clubs insights like item availability.

Walmart’s ‘Complete the Look’ feature suggests fashion and beauty items that complement the product that customers are currently shopping for. 

A key part of earning customer trust is maintaining a privacy-by-design culture where their privacy is considered at every stage, from ideation to roll out. We provide privacy notices to stakeholders with comprehensive information about the collection, use, protection and sharing of personal information, all in an effort to communicate transparently and responsibly.

Our commitment to the responsible use of data and technology helps us foster trust, because we implement measures to safeguard personal data and secure the systems that keep our business running. It’s this trust that serves as the foundation for us to further delight customers and enable our associates’ work as a people-led, tech-powered omnichannel retailer.