Walmart Sparky Users Spend 40% More as Ecommerce Sales Climb 23%

The number Walmart wants investors to remember

Walmart has been telling Wall Street that its AI shopping assistant, Sparky, does more than answer questions. On the company's second-quarter earnings call, CEO John Furner said 70% more customers were using Sparky than a year earlier. He added that shoppers and members who used it spend 40% more per order than those who don't.37 Walmart U.S. CEO Dave Guggina made the same point to investors in September, saying average order value "jumps 40%" when customers engage with the assistant.15

The claim is landing during a strong run for Walmart's digital business. Global ecommerce sales rose 23% in the second quarter of fiscal 2027, and Walmart U.S. ecommerce grew 24%.1820 The quarter's revenue was $187.9 billion, up 5.9%, and operating income climbed 28.8%.18 Most coverage treats Sparky as the newest engine behind that growth. Watchdogs, however, see the 40% figure as evidence of something less friendly to shoppers. Both readings deserve attention, but the more useful story is how much weight that one statistic is being asked to carry.

What Sparky actually does

Walmart launched Sparky in June 2025.7 It is built around conversational intent rather than keyword search. Shoppers can ask open-ended questions, such as which chili is healthiest for a family or which foods will survive a beach weekend without spoiling.3 Furner described one customer who asked for a week of high-protein meal plans. Sparky returned recipes and meal kits that could go into the basket with one click, and it skipped ingredients the shopper had already bought online or in stores.37

That last feature explains the business logic. An assistant that knows a household's purchase history across channels can turn a vague need into a full basket in seconds. It removes the friction that usually caps an online order. Furner called the experience trust-building.3 The bigger cart is also good for Walmart's revenue.

Sparky is more than a basket-builder. Walmart has tested "Sponsored Prompt" ads inside the assistant, and it has partnered with OpenAI so ChatGPT users can buy Walmart products directly. That approach mirrors Amazon's ad push inside its own assistant, Rufus.7 Groundwork Collaborative, a watchdog group, notes that Sparky connects to outside platforms like ChatGPT, unlike some rival in-house agents.4

The ecommerce machine around it

Sparky's 40% figure means more against the backdrop of Walmart's digital results. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, Walmart U.S. ecommerce grew 27%. That was the segment's eighth straight quarter of ecommerce growth above 20%.12 Global ecommerce rose 24% that quarter, led by store-fulfilled pickup and delivery and by the third-party marketplace.13 In the first quarter of fiscal 2027, global ecommerce sales grew 26%. Marketplace sales rose nearly 50%, Walmart's best marketplace performance in ten quarters.14

Ecommerce now drives the company's comparable sales. In the latest quarter, it contributed roughly 510 basis points to Walmart U.S. comp growth, up from about 420 a year earlier.18 Overall U.S. comp sales grew only 2.6%.20 Put simply, the digital business added more than the whole comp figure, which means the rest of the business was a net drag. Walmart cited pharmacy deflation tied to new maximum-fair-price regulation as a headwind.20 Even allowing for that, online is clearly where Walmart's growth is coming from.

The money is coming in as well as the sales. Walmart said U.S. operating income rose 20.6% in the quarter, partly because of improved ecommerce economics.18 Speed matters too. Walmart says it can reach about 60% of U.S. households in 30 minutes or less, and store-fulfilled delivery sales jumped about 45% in the first quarter.14

Why the bigger basket really matters: ads

The most important context for Sparky is advertising, not merchandise. Walmart's advertising business grew 38% in the second quarter, and Walmart Connect, its U.S. retail media unit, rose 43%.20 In a September note, Goldman Sachs said Walmart Connect had grown more than 40% a year for several quarters. The bank also said ad placements now earn better margins than the groceries sitting next to them.9 CFO John David Rainey has said advertising and memberships together make up roughly one-third of Walmart's earnings.14

This is why Sparky matters strategically. A conversational assistant is a new ad surface, and Walmart is already testing sponsored placements in it.79 Groundwork reports that the head of Walmart Connect called the information shoppers share with Sparky "gold" for product recommendations.5 A 40% bigger basket is good for sales. An assistant that also learns what shoppers want and sells that insight to brands helps both sides of Walmart's profit line. In my view, the advertising angle is the real story, and the order-value figure is the headline that sells it.

Where the reporting diverges

The 40% number is less settled than it looks. Most coverage repeats it as Walmart framed it.37 TheStreet, though, cites Fortune as reporting that about half of Walmart's app users have tried Sparky and that those users spend roughly 35% more per order.9 The gap may reflect different time periods or ways of measuring. Either way, the figure depends on who is counting and when.

The larger problem is cause and effect. A data scientist quoted by Moneywise warned against reading the 40% gap as proof that Sparky makes people spend 40% more.3 Early adopters of an AI assistant may already be more tech-savvy, shop more often, and fill bigger carts. Proving Sparky's effect would mean comparing the same shoppers' spending before and after they started using it.3 Walmart has also cited a 40% spending gap before. A Walmart marketing executive once said app users made twice as many trips and spent 40% more than the average shopper.6 When the same multiplier shows up for a new digital tool years apart, it looks more like a description of engaged customers than proof of any one product.

That does not make Sparky irrelevant. A 70% rise in usage during a period of 23% to 26% ecommerce growth suggests it is part of the mix.31418 But calling it Walmart's "secret weapon" goes further than the evidence.3

The pricing fight

The statistic has also become a political problem. In early October, Groundwork Collaborative published a report on more than a dozen patents Walmart holds or has applied for. The group argues they show Walmart building the tools to monitor shoppers and charge them individually.24 According to the report, the filings describe systems that could test how much a shopper will pay by offering pricier items, change prices based on what is already in a Scan & Go cart, hold back coupons from customers expected to pay full price, and add a charge for urgent curbside pickups.25

Walmart rejects that reading. Executive Dan Bartlett said the company does not use dynamic pricing, such as raising prices on a hot afternoon or before a snowstorm. He added that Walmart has committed not to pursue individualized pricing and that Groundwork is wrongly treating patents as plans.1 Furner has said Walmart will "price the product, not the person."2 Groundwork's Lindsay Owens replied that Walmart tells customers, investors, and the patent office three different stories.1

The facts are narrower than either side suggests. Patents are not products, and nothing reported here shows Walmart charging different shoppers different prices through Sparky. Groundwork's own report argues about capability rather than documented practice.4 Still, Walmart gave its critics the opening. When an executive tells investors that an AI system raises order value by 40%, the company can't be surprised when consumer advocates ask how.

What to watch

Analysts quoted on AI shopping agents agree that trust is the limiting factor. One futurist said the key test is whether the assistant works for the shopper or mainly for the retailer's sales. He also noted that AI can make impulse spending almost effortless.3 The CEO of True Fit warned that blurring the line between advice and advertising would quickly erode trust.3

That tension will shape Walmart's next stage of digital growth. The company has built a fast, profitable ecommerce business, with advertising increasingly paying for it.91418 Sparky could make that business stronger by turning conversations into baskets and baskets into ad inventory. To keep that edge, Walmart will need to show shoppers, and possibly regulators, that the extra 40% comes from helpful suggestions rather than hidden steering. Its next earnings calls should show whether executives are still willing to feature that number.