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.
Split Spending: Survival vs. Splurge Defines the New Consumer
March 24, 2026
The most endangered species in retail isn’t brick-and-mortar. It’s the mid-market shopper share of wallet. Findings in the March edition of the PYMNTS Intelligence “Share of Wallet: Amazon vs. Walmart” report ...Read moreWalmart Shuts Down Agentic Commerce With OpenAI
March 23, 2026
Walmart is pulling back from OpenAI’s Instant Checkout feature inside ChatGPT after internal data showed conversion rates were roughly three times lower than transactions completed on its own website, as ...Read moreWalmart’s Digital Price Tags Face Pushback From Lawmakers
March 22, 2026
Walmart announced plans recently to bring digital price tags to its stores by year’s end. However, the retail giant’s effort is happening as lawmakers have begun to criticize digital shelf labels ...Read moreOpenAI and Google Refine Early AI Commerce Strategies
March 20, 2026
Tech companies are adjusting their approaches to artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled commerce after encountering some hurdles in their first attempts, CNBC reported Friday (March 20). OpenAI recently confirmed that it is ending its ...Read moreGoogle Debuts New Ways to Let AI Agents Shop Like Humans
March 19, 2026
Google has updated its Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), the agentic commerce standard launched in January. Since then, the tech giant said on its blog Thursday (March 19), the company has worked ...Read moreWalmart Draws a Line Between Smart Markdowns and Dynamic Pricing
March 19, 2026
Retailers today are operating under intense margin pressure from multiple directions. eCommerce has introduced higher fulfillment and return costs, while supply chain volatility has increased inventory risk. At the same time, ...Read moreBudget Pressure Is Changing What ‘Worth It’ Means to Gen Z
March 19, 2026
Financial stress is pushing more consumers toward digital wallets, and the shift may say less about tech adoption than about how shoppers are trying to stay organized when every dollar ...Read moreWalmart Secures Machine Learning Patents to Aid Retail Pricing
March 18, 2026
Walmart has secured U.S. patents for two systems that would use machine learning to inform the company’s pricing, the Financial Times reported Wednesday (March 18). One patent is for a “system and ...Read moreAmazon Could Slash Postal Service Package Volume by Two-Thirds
March 18, 2026
Amazon’s status as the U.S. Postal Service’s biggest customer could be about to change. The tech giant has begun to scale back the volume of packages it ships via the postal service (USPS) with ...Read moreWhy AI Shopping Is Still Just a Smarter Search Bar
March 18, 2026
More than a year ago, I asked AI to help me buy a toaster. Not to browse. I knew exactly what I wanted, down to the brand, and I gave ...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
Gig Economy Becomes New AI Training Ground
March 20, 2026
DoorDash on Thursday (March 19) launched a paid task program that redirects its 8 million U.S. delivery couriers toward a new kind of work: generating training data for artificial intelligence ...Read moreAmazon Buys Robot Maker RIVR to Win Last-Mile Delivery Race
March 19, 2026
Amazon has acquired RIVR, a company that uses physical artificial intelligence and wheeled-legged robots to automate doorstep delivery. RIVR CEO and Co-Founder Marko Bjelonic announced the acquisition in a Thursday (March ...Read moreNvidia Launches AI for Hospital Operating Rooms
March 18, 2026
Robots are coming to hospitals, but they are not there to replace surgeons. Instead, they observe, coordinate and carry loads, tasks that consume large amounts of clinical staff time and ...Read moreInvestors Bet Big on Industry-Specific AI and Robotics
March 16, 2026
Physical artificial intelligence and vertical AI startups are drawing investor attention as venture funding flows toward companies building systems designed either to operate in the physical world or automate specialized ...Read moreMind 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 more
Walmart Shuts Down Agentic Commerce With OpenAI
March 23, 2026Walmart is pulling back from OpenAI’s Instant Checkout feature inside ChatGPT after internal data showed conversion rates were roughly three times lower than transactions completed on its own website, as ...Read moreGlobal Mall Visionary David Simon Dies at 64
March 23, 2026
David Simon, a former investment banker who grew a regional family real estate enterprise into the global retail real estate player Simon Property Group, passed away Sunday (March 22) at ...Read moreWalmart’s Digital Price Tags Face Pushback From Lawmakers
March 22, 2026Walmart announced plans recently to bring digital price tags to its stores by year’s end. However, the retail giant’s effort is happening as lawmakers have begun to criticize digital shelf labels ...Read moreStarbucks Rewards Backlash Highlights Retail’s Shift Away From Points-Based Loyalty
March 20, 2026
Starbucks overhauled its rewards program in this month, and customers noticed immediately. The coffee chain replaced its long-standing structure with a three-tier membership system sorting members into Green, Gold and ...Read moreTokenization Powers Invisible Checkout in Agentic Commerce
March 20, 2026
Tokenization is evolving into a structural layer that allows commerce to proceed without a visible checkout. The shift anchored “The Prompt Economy™ Tracker® Series: Tokens, Trust and Transactions,” a PYMNTS Intelligence ...Read moreWalmart Draws a Line Between Smart Markdowns and Dynamic Pricing
March 19, 2026Retailers today are operating under intense margin pressure from multiple directions. eCommerce has introduced higher fulfillment and return costs, while supply chain volatility has increased inventory risk. At the same time, ...Read moreBudget Pressure Is Changing What ‘Worth It’ Means to Gen Z
March 19, 2026Financial stress is pushing more consumers toward digital wallets, and the shift may say less about tech adoption than about how shoppers are trying to stay organized when every dollar ...Read moreWalmart Secures Machine Learning Patents to Aid Retail Pricing
March 18, 2026Walmart has secured U.S. patents for two systems that would use machine learning to inform the company’s pricing, the Financial Times reported Wednesday (March 18). One patent is for a “system and ...Read moreMeta Expands Physical Retail Presence as Virtual Spaces Close
March 18, 2026
Meta is reportedly expanding its physical retail push by opening a new Manhattan store. The tech giant has signed a 10-year lease on a five-story building on Fifth Avenue, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday (March ...Read moreLowe’s Unveils Subscription Service for Consumer Home Maintenance
March 18, 2026
Lowe’s has launched a subscription service to help customers maintain their homes. HomeCare+, announced Tuesday (March 17), lets members of the company’s MyLowe’s Rewards program access seven in-home services for $99 ...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