Walmart is putting generative AI in the hands of roughly 50,000 non-store U.S. employees who will have access to My Assistant, an LLM trained on information. From speeding the drafting process to serving as a creative partner and summarizing documents, “My Assistant has the potential to change how our associates work and solve problems,” Walmart said, emphasizing the launch goes beyond productivity gains. “We believe the key to unlocking transformation lies in the creativity and innovation of our associates. Ideally, this technology will free them from monotonous, repetitive tasks, allowing more time and focus for improving the customer/member experience.” 

“The move shows one of America’s biggest companies sees value in providing broad access to the tech industry’s hottest new product,” Axios summarizes, explaining that “the generative AI feature is part of the company’s broader ‘Me@Campus’ app for employees and works on both computers and smartphones.”

Walmart declined to say whose foundation model or custom training tools it used to build My Assistant, Axios writes.

“We believe GenAI will revolutionize the retail industry, make shopping easier and more enjoyable for customers/members, and create better work experiences for associates,” Walmart said in a LinkedIn blog post coauthored by EVP and Chief People Officer Donna Morris, and EVP of New Businesses and Emerging Technologies Cheryl Ainoa.

Walmart says it will also use the tool to help impart benefits information during annual enrollment and for new staff orientations.

“Generative AI can help us work faster and more efficiently, but it also has limitations: it lacks judgment, has a limited understanding of context and is only as good as the data it’s trained on” the blog post noted, concluding that “out-of-the-box, truly brand-new thinking — that’s what humans are good at.”

“As enterprises grow more familiar with what generative AI can do for employees, adoption at scale has picked up among the largest organizations,” reports Retail Dive.

“Commercial real estate company JLL released its proprietary large language model to its more than 103,000-member workforce earlier this month” while “consulting firm PwC is rolling out its conversational AI assistant to employees in a phased approach, with around 1,000 employees having access to the tool as of August 15” and “McKinsey also equipped 7,000 employees with a generative AI tool this month.”

Related:
Walmart Leans into AI, Retools Site to Compete with Amazon, ETCentric, 4/10/23