pymnts Profile:
Walmart (NYSE: WMT)
Walmart Inc. is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores. Headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, the company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and incorporated on October 31, 1969.
Shopify Bets Big on Agentic AI
March 16, 2026
Shopify’s president says the company is making a significant push towards agentic shopping. Speaking at the Upfront Summit in LA, Harley Finkelstein argued that agentic artificial intelligence (AI) can serve as a new entry point ...Read moreWalmart’s PhonePe Says War Has Halted IPO Plans
March 16, 2026
Indian digital payments provider PhonePe has paused its plans to go public. The Walmart-backed company cited geopolitical conflicts and market upheaval as reasons for delaying its initial public offering (IPO), according ...Read moreAmazon May Move Prime Day to Late June
March 12, 2026
Amazon plans to hold its annual Prime Day sale a month earlier, scheduling it for late June this year rather than July as it did last year, Bloomberg reported Thursday ...Read moreAmazon Opens Its Platform While Walmart Automates Its Warehouses
March 12, 2026
In the long contest between Amazon and Walmart, strategy has rarely been static. The headlines this week show that while Walmart is investing in supply chain automation, with 23 of its ...Read moreAmazon Injunction Could Change the Future of Agentic Commerce
March 11, 2026
Amazon won an early legal victory this week when a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking Perplexity from using the Comet browser’s artificial intelligence shopping agent to access password-protected ...Read moreWalmart-Backed Flipkart Readies Mumbai IPO
March 11, 2026
Flipkart, one of India’s biggest eCommerce platforms, is preparing for a potential initial public offering (IPO) in Mumbai that could take place this year or early next year, Bloomberg reported ...Read moreRetail Banking Bundles Turn Subscriptions Into FinTech Battleground
March 9, 2026
The subscription economy has reshaped how consumers pay for entertainment, software and even groceries. Now a similar model is making inroads into retail banking, as FinTech platforms package financial services into ...Read moreGen Z Goes Big for Legacy Brands as Malls Make a Comeback
March 8, 2026
They may be digital natives, but members of Gen Z still love the mall. That’s according to a report Sunday (March 8) from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which says that ...Read moreAmazon, Walmart Shift Retail Competition From Price to Technology
March 6, 2026
Retail used to compete primarily on assortment, price and convenience. Increasingly, it competes on infrastructure and positioning. In a consumer environment defined by uncertainty driven by persistent inflation pressures, cautious spending ...Read morePattern Group Revenue Rises 40% as AI Product Discovery Reshapes eCommerce
March 5, 2026
Pattern Group’s fourth quarter results, posted after the market closed on Thursday (March 5), reflect broader shifts underway in digital retail as brands expand across more marketplaces and artificial intelligence ...Read more
Uber Launches Exchangeable Bond Deal Featuring Rare Structure
May 20, 2025
A $1.2 billion exchangeable bond deal announced last week by Uber Technologies reportedly features a rare structure that is appealing to investors and to Uber. The deal is tied to Uber’s ...Read moreAutonomous Transport Could Drive Trucking Into Digital Transformation’s Fast Lane
May 15, 2024
In America, we move most of our goods by road. This makes trucks and 18-wheelers a crucial, even definitive, part of any supply chain. It also highlights the compounding impact of ...Read moreUber Eats and Waymo Roll Out Autonomous Delivery in Phoenix
April 3, 2024
Uber is expanding its Phoenix-based partnership with autonomous vehicle company Waymo. The company announced Wednesday (April 3) that it is now offering Uber Eats deliveries in the Arizona capital via Waymo vehicles. “Starting today in Phoenix, ...Read moreContinental and Aurora Finalize Autonomous Trucking System Design
January 5, 2024
Mobility technology firm Continental and self-driving technology company Aurora Innovation have finalized the design of a scalable autonomous trucking system and plan to start production in 2027. Finalizing the design and ...Read moreWaymo Via, Uber Freight Sign Partnership on Self-Driving Trucks
June 7, 2022
Waymo Via, Alphabet’s self-driving trucking unit, has signed a deal with Uber’s Freight business to help future customers deploy autonomous trucks more easily, Reuters wrote Tuesday (June 7). The partnership could ...Read moreSelf-Driving Truck Hauls 40K Pounds Of Butter Across US
December 30, 2019
Silicon Valley startup Plus.ai is thought to be the first company to deploy a self-driving commercial truck to haul 40,000 pounds of butter roughly 42 hours cross-country from Tulare, California ...Read moreWaymo Returns Its Self-Driving Trucks To Arizona
May 30, 2019
Waymo‘s self-driving trucks are making a return to Arizona. The company’s self-driving, Class 8, big-rig trucks haven’t been in the state for more than a year, though they were first tested ...Read moreDriverless Trucks Hog the Highway to an Autonomous Vehicle Future
October 2, 2018
Driverless cars are indeed coming to roads soon enough — the U.K.’s transport secretary, in fact, recently predicted that those vehicles would appear there within four years. Even so, it might ...Read moreEx-Uber, Otto Exec’s Autonomous Truck Startup Snags $40M
August 8, 2018
Kodiak Robotics, a self-driving vehicle startup, announced that it raised $40 million in Series A funding, led by global investment firm Battery Ventures. CRV, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Tusk Ventures ...Read moreDaimler Unveils eMobility Unit For Trucks And Buses
June 6, 2018
Combining its efforts from five divisions, Daimler Trucks is rolling out an eMobility unit. The idea behind the unit is to speed up the creation of battery-powered engines for use ...Read more
Mind Robotics Raises $500 Million to Improve Industrial Robots
March 11, 2026
Mind Robotics has raised $500 million to develop what it calls “AI-enabled” robotic systems. The company’s Series A round, expected to close later this month, follows $115 million in seed funding ...Read moreRhoda AI Raises $450 Million to Automate Manufacturing and Logistics
March 10, 2026
Robotic intelligence firm Rhoda AI emerged from stealth Tuesday (March 10) and announced it raised $450 million in a Series A funding round. The company is building a robot foundation model that combines ...Read moreOpenAI Robotics Head Quits Over Pentagon Partnership
March 8, 2026
OpenAI’s robotics lead has left the company due to its partnership with the Pentagon. Caitlin Kalinowski announced her departure from the artificial intelligence startup in a post on the social media ...Read moreElon Musk Says Tesla’s Robots Could One Day Reach AGI-Level Intelligence
March 5, 2026
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company could eventually build humanoid robots capable of artificial general intelligence (AGI), according to a report published Thursday (March 5) by Seeking Alpha. Musk on ...Read moreChinese Tech Firm Honor Debuts Humanoid Robot and Robot Phone
March 1, 2026
Chinese device marker Honor has reportedly introduced a humanoid robot and “robot phone.” The company demonstrated those products Sunday (March 1) at MWC Barcelona 2026, Bloomberg News reported, calling it Honor’s ...Read moreZaiNar Raises $100 Million for AI-Powered GPS Alternative
February 19, 2026
California-based startup ZaiNar has raised $100 million to develop an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered GPS alternative. That $100 million figure includes the $10 million the company recently took in, valuing it at ...Read moreRobots, Compliance and AI Receptionists: $1.45 Billion Backs AI Embedded in Real Operations
February 17, 2026
Across robotics, media production, healthcare administration, compliance and small-business front desks, startups raised capital by promising measurable output: robots on factory floors, video assets in production pipelines and prior authorizations ...Read moreApptronik Raises $520 Million to Roll Out Humanoid Robot
February 11, 2026
Apptronik has raised $520 million as it prepares to launch a new humanoid robot. The Austin-based company announced its Series A-X funding round Wednesday (Feb. 11), with investors including Google and ...Read moreConstruction Embraces AI Agents, Safety Systems and Robotics as Labor Pressures Mount
February 10, 2026
Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to experimental pilots in the construction industry. It is moving into the operational core of how projects are planned, monitored and executed, driven by ...Read moreAlibaba Debuts AI That Helps Robots Understand Their Surroundings
February 10, 2026
Chinese tech giant Alibaba has introduced an artificial intelligence (AI) model designed to power robotics. As CNBC reported Tuesday (Feb. 10), the company’s RynnBrain was developed to help robots grasp their ...Read more
China’s JD.Com Brings eCommerce Platform to EU and UK
March 16, 2026
Chinese eCommerce giant JD.com has launched a shopping platform in Europe. Joybuy, which debuted Monday (March 16), serves six European countries, including the U.K. and Germany, along with the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Luxembourg. “The UK ...Read moreTarget Accelerates Growth Plan With Price Cuts
March 13, 2026
Target will begin lowering prices on 3,000 items this month in its latest move to support the company’s long-term, sustainable growth. The price reductions will generally be between 5% and 20% and ...Read more42% of Power Users Say They Now Use Search Less
March 13, 2026
Artificial intelligence is starting to look less like a novelty and more like a new kind of personal assistant, one that people increasingly tap first when they need to do ...Read moreAmazon Opens Its Platform While Walmart Automates Its Warehouses
March 12, 2026In the long contest between Amazon and Walmart, strategy has rarely been static. The headlines this week show that while Walmart is investing in supply chain automation, with 23 of its ...Read moreDollar General Logs 7 Million App Users as Consumers Shop Digitally
March 12, 2026
Dollar General’s latest quarterly earnings results, released Thursday (March 12), showed steady demand for low-priced essentials alongside a growing digital ecosystem. The retailer reported net sales of $10.9 billion for the ...Read moreStitch Fix Clients Seek New Sizes as GLP-1 Use Climbs
March 11, 2026
Stitch Fix used its fiscal second-quarter earnings call to highlight how artificial intelligence and data-driven personalization are reshaping the way consumers discover and purchase apparel on its platform. The company described ...Read moreAmazon Streamlines Direct Sales for Merchants
March 11, 2026
Amazon is making it easier for merchants to participate in Shop Direct, its program that helps customers find and buy products that are not sold in its own store. The company ...Read moreKohl’s Amps Up eCommerce as Lower-Income Shoppers Face Pressure
March 10, 2026
Kohl’s turnaround efforts are being challenged by the continued economic pressures facing its core customers. The department store chain reported earnings Tuesday (March 10) showing net sales down 3.9% for the ...Read moreeCommerce Sales Hit $316 Billion as Online Retail Gains Share
March 10, 2026
The steady migration of consumer spending toward digital channels continued through the end of 2025, underlining the extent to which online commerce has become embedded in the broader retail economy. Estimates ...Read moreAI Wants the Checkout but Spreedly Says Merchants Keep the Keys
March 10, 2026
Every day seems to bring another announcement about artificial intelligence agents that can search, compare and buy on a consumer’s behalf. The momentum is real. So is the attention. But much ...Read more
Walmart Teams With Fiserv on Instant Bank Payments
September 19, 2024
Walmart is reportedly enhancing its pay-by-bank offering via a partnership with Fiserv. The retailer began offering pay-by-bank with Walmart Pay earlier this year, Bloomberg reported Thursday (Sept. 19). But those transactions, ...Read moreNew Data: 95 Pct. Of Consumers Don’t Use Mobile Wallets For In-Store Purchases
April 6, 2020
Among its many profound impacts, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered how consumers shop. Even before large-scale stay-at-home policies went into effect, most consumers sought to limit direct contact with ...Read moreREPORT: What Apple Pay At Five Says About The Future Of Mobile POS Payments
October 21, 2019
Apple Pay went live five years ago yesterday, on Oct. 20, 2014. When Tim Cook took the stage a month beforehand to announce this mobile payments innovation, he shared Apple’s vision ...Read moreCuring Medicine’s Epidemic Of Noncompliance
March 22, 2018
The New York Times wrote in April 2017 that the U.S. was in the throes of an epidemic for which there was not only a cure, but one that would ...Read moreMobile Wallets: Where’s The S-Curve?
February 26, 2018
The classic product lifecycle that all of us had drilled into our heads in business school tells us that at the three-year mark for any new product, it’s top of ...Read moreWhat Payments Innovators Can Learn From Monkeys
January 15, 2018
About 30 days from now, most of you reading this who made a New Year’s resolution will have broken it. Don’t feel too bad – you won’t be alone. By the middle ...Read moreMotivating Mobile In 2018
January 4, 2018
Another year, another chance for mobile wallet players to convince consumers to give up their plastic cards and utilize the phone as a payments form factor. It hasn’t been easy. Despite ...Read moreMobile Payments 2.0: Building Better Retail Experiences
December 28, 2017
Payments has by and large been a growth business for the last half decade or so, and that fact has been mappable in scores of innovations around the world. But, as ...Read moreTarget: Another Day, A New “Pay” Joins The Party
December 7, 2017
For a minute, it seemed as though the proliferation of “Pays” was slowing down. Until recently, there was a tidal wave of Pays out to conquer digital with the power of mobile payments. Apple Pay, ...Read moreWhat Walmart’s Resurgence Means For Retail And The “Pays”
November 20, 2017
Accomplished public intellectual and post-Keynesian economist John Kenneth Galbraith was well-known for four things. He didn’t think much of math and science — rather unusual given his choice of a profession that ...Read more