AI-Enabled Commerce Pulse​

74% of shoppers use AI to shop*

Your organization must have a strategy that helps you move proactively in this lightning-quick space.​

Kantar’s study measures growth and change of attitudes to AI: ​

• Consumer awareness, engagement, and trust towards AI-enabled and agentic shopping​
• Shopper behaviors including usage and platform adoption​
• Category-level insight into which are most fertile for influence and how they are approached​
• Retailer and platform reputational scores / indices in agentic AI commerce

Why you need this study:

• Back your AI strategy with executable, retailer-specific insights​
• Discover where your categories sit in the broader context and the potential for future disruption​
• Inform where and when you should engage with the shopper journey with a rich understanding of shoppers' AI attitudes and decision-making​
• Leverage Kantar's AI segmentation tool to discover the AI shopping spectrum at a level beyond demographics

Reach out to your client representative or kantarshopper@kantar.com for more information.

​*Kantar AI-Enabled Commerce Pulse Wave 2 (May 2026)

INSIGHTS
Winning AI with Walmart, with Sparky

Walmart's AI shopping assistant, Sparky, ranked as the most used retailers tool in Wave 2 of Kantar's AI-Enabled Commerce Pulse study, but use is not loyalty.  Walmart will need to sprint to win over time, and its AI road map shows how it is asking suppliers to help.

While over half (54%) of AI shoppers have used Sparky to shop, over three-quarters (78%) of Sparky adopters have also used Amazon Rufus.  Despite the strong overlap between Walmart+ membership and Sparky use, use is not a predictor of loyalty.  At least, not to a retailer.

Sparky users are more likely to use every single AI platform, whether a proprietary retailer tool or technology company.

All this is not to say that Walmart is not doing well, but rather that Sparky's main users are early AI adopters.  In other words: technology enthusiasts predisposed to like and use the tool.   

Sparky will be a key growth lever for Walmart.  Like Walmart+, it encourages higher spend and bigger baskets.  But lasting, tangible growth will rely on insight into Sparky's inner workings.