Walmart (WMT) Says Sparky Shoppers Spend 40% More Per Order, Users Up 70%

Walmart Inc. (WMT) said on its 2026-08-20 earnings call that the number of customers using its Sparky AI shopping assistant grew 70% year over year and that those customers spend 40% more per order than customers who do not. No controlled comparison between the two groups has been run [1].

Walmart is the largest retailer in the world, built on physical stores across the United States and several other countries plus the online store that serves them, selling groceries and general merchandise. Three adjacent businesses have grown faster in recent years: the marketplace for third-party sellers, advertising sold to brands, and membership fees.

What Sparky does

Sparky is a conversational shopping assistant inside Walmart's own app. Customers describe a task in everyday language, such as preparing a picnic or restocking a week of groceries, and it recommends products and assembles the order. When an outside AI assistant surfaces a Walmart product to a user, the selection and checkout that follow are handed back to Sparky.

Two usage metrics, and a third data point

Management gave two usage-side figures: Sparky users grew 70% year over year, and customers shopping with it spend 40% more per order than others [1]. This is not the first time the metric has appeared. The call at the end of the prior fiscal year disclosed a comparable gap of about 35%, making this the third data point on the same measure.

Connecting those figures to results is not yet possible. This quarter's financial data is not in the database, so only management's figures are available for comparison: US comparable sales grew 2.6%, global e-commerce grew 23%, marketplace grew 52% and advertising grew 38% [2]. Revenue growth has now risen for five consecutive quarters, from 2.5% to 7.3% [2].

Explaining that growth, however, the company did not credit Sparky. It named delivery and price: fast delivery grew 48%, 30-minute delivery now covers 38 regions, and more than 11,000 items were rolled back on price this quarter [2]. Management used exactly the same correlational phrasing about fast delivery as about Sparky, saying customers who use fast delivery shop more often [2].

Rivals are further along

Amazon's Rufus assistant is more mature and reported on more fully: more than 300 million users in 2025, monthly actives up more than 115% year over year, interactions up nearly 400%, and customers who used Rufus about 60% more likely to complete a purchase [3]. Target named its partnerships with outside AI platforms on a call the day before and reported AI-sourced digital traffic growing far faster than the industry [3]. Further down, MercadoLibre's shopping assistant is still in A/B testing and Shopee's is in pilot, so Walmart leads most retail peers while trailing its closest competitor [3].

What is established

Sparky is in use at scale inside the app, and user counts and the basket-size gap have been disclosed across several quarters with the gap widening.

Causation and amount are not established. The 40% figure compares customers who chose for themselves whether to use the assistant, and shoppers who already prefer the app and buy more are more likely to use it. The company describes no incrementality test. Sparky appeared in a single paragraph of prepared remarks, no analyst followed up on it, and no guidance is tied to it.

Application: Revenue Stage: Scaled Value realized: Moderate Confidence: Medium

Sources

[1] Drillr · Walmart Inc. (WMT) · 2026-08-20 · earnings call

"Sparky is a great example. The number of customers using Sparky is up 70% from last year, and the customers and members who use Sparky for shopping spend 40% more per order than others who don't."

[2] Drillr · Walmart Inc. (WMT) · revenue trend verification

[3] Drillr · Walmart Inc. (WMT) · peer comparison verification