Walmart founder Sam Walton’s shared tagline, “Our people make the difference,” guides the company as it challenges the future with generative AI.
The multinational retailer positions itself as a āpeople-led, technology-poweredā company, and generative AI sits squarely at the intersection of its power. Most leaders believe that innovation can be fully realized by combining the strengths of people and technology. This belief is exemplified by his new generation of AI-powered My Assistant, which he launched in August to improve the productivity of Walmart’s 50,000 U.S.-based employees. The move makes Walmart one of the few companies (other than tech giants) to leverage generative AI at scale. And they did it in just 60 days.
The driving force behind this progress is Ben Peterson, Walmart’s head of people products. Peterson joins Walmart after 10 years at the global consulting firm, where he built a product management consulting practice serving retail and consumer goods customers and joins Walmart’s 210 employees worldwide. We focused squarely on improving the employee experience for everyone.
āWe are on an ambitious journey to reimagine the employee experience by building consumer-grade, intuitive digital experiences that unlock their full potential,ā Peter said. Mr. Song said, referring to the systems and processes that underpin employee digital interactions across employment. Onboarding, learning, performance management, career development, compensation, benefits, payroll, and more.
āTechnology has always been core to how we serve our customers and support personnel, and we knew early on that we wanted to be a leader in generative AI,ā he says.
Here, Peterson shares the origins of Walmart’s latest innovation and the secret to beating the hype to deliver on the promise of generative AI at scale. This is something that few organizations have achieved to date.
Establish a compelling vision
āAI will not replace radiologists, but radiologists who use AI will replace radiologists who do not use AI.ā This is based in Arkansas, where Walmart is headquartered. It’s an analogy that comes from the mouths of many leaders in Bentonville, state. This analogy is powerful. This encapsulates the company’s ethos around generative AI and reinforces the bias toward innovation that allowed Walmart to redefine supply chain management and establish its everyday low price strategy years ago. This strategy is documented in a case study of an elite business school. In the world.
When ChatGPT surpassed 100 million users, Walmart executives visited a major research institute to discuss long-term opportunities in generative AI. Researchers confirmed Walmart’s assumptions on the first day. Initially, the technology will primarily help knowledge workers by augmenting, rather than automating, their jobs. This led Walmart leaders to focus on their initial user base: the company’s 50,000 “home office” employees based in the United States.
The day after the lab visit, executives met to coordinate a unified top-to-top vision and messaging for generative AI at Walmart. Peterson explains that it was essential amidst the hype surrounding the technology.
āBetween new innovations occurring on a daily basis and a bifurcated view of the overall market, we have found it important to have a clear vision that allows us to avoid distractions and sustain progress. ā he says. A clear vision is more than just excitement and unity. This helps teams answer important questions and, in turn, mobilize for execution. That is, how will employees access the tools? What will be the core use case? How will our focus change after the first 60 days? From now to 24 What will the world be like in a month?
Equally important, says Peterson, is getting the message across the company. From the beginning, Walmart said, “This technology… Augmentation their work. “Our goal is to help our employees reach their full potential. It’s about making work more intuitive, creating more room for creativity and leveraging the human connections that make Walmart special.” ā he says.
Strengthen cross-functional product teams
My Assistant’s product-market fit was driven by a myriad of forces. Chief among them was buy-in from leaders like Donna Morris, chief human resources officer at Walmart, who recognized the potential of generative AI early on. Mr. Peterson credits him as one of the key drivers in prioritizing and investing in technology.
Until recently, Peterson’s product organization reported directly to the global technology division, a typical structure for organizations the size of Walmart. While this allowed the product team to build strong relationships with other cross-functional delivery teams, the distance from the business ultimately hindered their work. This led to a move earlier this year where Mr. Peterson and his People and Product organization reported directly to Mr. Morris. āGiven Donna’s vision, passion for technology, and strong track record of innovation, having our team under her leadership was key,ā Peterson explains. Delivering results for our people and our business. ā
When it came time to execute, we created a fully dedicated cross-functional product team with talented leaders from product, engineering, data science, design, and business. The team was able to communicate directly with management when roadblocks occurred, allowing them to stay focused on researching, designing, and building product features that drive engagement and adoption of generative AI. Through rapid prototyping and agile development, the team developed a minimum viable product (MVP) for his My Assistant and delivered it to employees in just 60 days.
The product-led approach and speed to market were supported by executive leadership alignment and participation. āDonna and other executives were deeply involved in our strategy, vision, and execution, including participating in early product demos and weekly check-ins,ā Peterson said, adding that she remained focused and executed. He pointed out that their involvement is essential to removing obstacles. āI cannot overstate how important leadership alignment has been to truly empower our product teams to move quickly and mitigate the headwinds they face.ā
Manage change and training proactively
According to Peterson, the deployment of generative AI will experience a similar curve of change that Microsoft Excel experienced in the 1980s before it becomes accepted as corporate gospel.
āJust as early users of Microsoft Excel had to undergo training to understand how to harness the power of PivotTables and VLOOKUP formulas, generative AI users have to undergo training to truly harness that power. need to understand the exciting and high-impact use cases,ā he says. He also calls attention to change management and implementation, the importance of which should not be underestimated when it comes to AI.
To drive adoption of My Assistant, Walmart used formal and informal tactics, conducted practical use case demos at city halls to raise awareness, and provided hands-on training to human resources managers. giving you the experience, knowledge and confidence you need. To advocate for use cases within the team.
āWe encourage leaders to discuss the use of My Assistant with their teams and highlight ways to demonstrate how My Assistant can increase creativity and productivity,ā Peterson said. he explains. “When employees need to write a white paper, they should not be ashamed to use My Assistant as a starting point. Managers will recognize that it can lead to a more creative and productive first draft. “While the output is not perfect and requires human intervention, My Assistant dramatically helps remove barriers to getting started.” , says that āseeing is believingā and that hands-on training empowers employees to see generative AI as a productivity enhancer ā an ally rather than a threat.
I’m looking forward to
Today, My Assistant provides a consumer-grade experience that allows Walmart corporate employees in the U.S. to securely synthesize, summarize, and augment their own data from the Walmart ecosystem. In the near future, employees at U.S. companies will be able to use My Assistant to answer complex benefits questions and leverage other personalized use cases for career development, learning, onboarding, data analytics, and more. It will be.
Looking to the future, Walmart plans to expand My Assistant to employees at international companies, starting with employees in Canada, Mexico and Central America. Additionally, the company’s vision is to eventually bring Gen AI solutions to front-line employees at Walmart stores and Sam’s Clubs, enabling them to better serve customers and members.
As with any new technology, it is difficult to imagine the extent to which GenAI will shape our work and daily lives. What is clear is that Mr. Peterson expects a lot of job growth and a byproduct of that is the creation of a lot of new jobs.
āBut at the end of the day, our people will continue to be what sets us apart,ā he says.