For retail giants, pursuing technological innovation is not only to consolidate their market position, but also to drive growth at the appropriate time.

Recently, Wal Mart launched a new generative AI tool "Sparky", which is an AI shopping assistant that can provide purchase suggestions in line with the scenario and improve the user's shopping experience according to product evaluation and user needs.

Wal Mart AI Shopping Assistant Source: corporate.walmart

For example, users can inquire with Sparky about current sports events and receive dressing advice, cultural and creative purchasing suggestions, etc. related to the event; You can also inquire with Sparky about the weather conditions of a certain location to obtain suitable travel clothing recommendations.

However, this is only a function that most AI shopping assistants in the past could achieve. Sparky's innovation, or goal, is to provide users with one-stop shopping services.

Specifically, Sparky will soon implement automatic replenishment and booking functions, understand the text, images, audio, and video information uploaded by users, answer various detailed questions related to products, and provide users with a complete shopping service including listing purchase lists, selecting suitable products, and adding purchases.

Basically, users only need to ask questions and make payments based on Sparky's recommendations; Alternatively, without the need for users to ask questions, Sparky can add fixed items for users based on their past purchase history. The completion of the entire process can save users a significant amount of time and cost.

This is also a core tenet of Wal Mart's application of AI technology. Doug McMillon, CEO of Wal Mart, said when previewing Sparky's launch, "One of Wal Mart's next plans is to save more time for people."

Of course, saving time for users also means that Wal Mart can obtain higher user stickiness and a more stable source of income. From this perspective, the use of technological innovation services is undoubtedly a growth strategy of Wal Mart.

In the current market environment, this strategy also appears to be very important. In the first quarter of this year, Wal Mart's net sales maintained a growth trend, but the growth rate was lower than expected for the first time since 2020, which means that the growth is slowing down.

Wal Mart's latest quarterly revenue growth is lower than expected. Source:CNBC

For a giant like Wal Mart, this is obviously not a good omen. Industry insiders analyze that in addition to external market factors, this slowing growth trend is also related to changes in consumer habits, as consumers begin to shift more of their spending on goods towards services, experiences, healthcare, and housing. This leads to a decrease in the incremental growth of online retail, and platforms need to make more efforts to search for new breakthroughs in areas beyond goods and services.

In fact, like Wal Mart, there are many platforms eager to rely on new technology to stimulate new growth. From global e-commerce leaders to regional e-commerce giants, retail platforms are increasingly valuing the development potential of new technologies on the consumer side.

At the end of May, Amazon announced that it would invest $10 billion in North Carolina to build data centers and expand its AI infrastructure; In early June, it was announced that it would invest at least $20 billion in Pennsylvania to expand its artificial intelligence projects.

Amazon invests heavily in artificial intelligence facilities. Source:aboutamazon

Looking back at this year, Amazon has allocated up to $100 billion in investment funds, most of which have been used for artificial intelligence related projects. It can be said that Amazon is not only an AI e-commerce giant, but also an AI giant in the field of technology.

Last July, Amazon fully launched its AI shopping assistant Rufus. Based on algorithms, Rufus can provide conversational shopping support, including deep product analysis, personalized recommendations, product comparisons, order queries, and even travel advice for non shopping related questions.

In March of this year, Amazon further expanded its AI shopping by launching a product recommendation feature called "Interests". This feature aims to help users discover products they may not have known about but actually need, and make shopping decisions faster. For example, searching for "small tools commonly used by coffee enthusiasts" and "model building kits and accessories for amateur engineers and designers".

Amazon AI product recommendation feature map source:aboutamazon

In addition, as a technology driven enterprise, Amazon is also pushing its artificial intelligence business to enterprise customers, providing retail services based on artificial intelligence technology for merchants and brands. Financial report data shows that since last year, Amazon's artificial intelligence business has experienced explosive growth, with growth rates reaching triple digits at one point. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has publicly stated that Amazon has achieved billions of dollars in revenue in the field of artificial intelligence.

In addition to AI shopping assistants and customer service, AI technology is also widely used in the logistics field, which is a favorable cost reduction and efficiency improvement measure for e-commerce platforms.

In the Korean market, e-commerce giant Coupang's new plan is to use AI technology to build another batch of automated logistics centers in Korea, expanding its flagship business of rocket delivery services to the entire Korean region, further shortening the delivery time of goods, and attracting more users.

Coupang AI Logistics Center Source: hellot.net

Undoubtedly, AI technology has become a new source of vitality driving the development of e-commerce platforms. In this sense, pursuing technological innovation services is essentially pursuing new growth points. Looking ahead to the future, in the context of technological development, e-commerce giants will invest heavily in building new projects and continue to go further on the path of technological innovation.