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.
Walmart’s Closing the Amazon Online Sales Gap
January 14, 2026
Walmart’s online business is no longer defined by how far it trails Amazon, but by how quickly it is changing the structure of the retail race. That is the central insight ...Read moreAmazon Brings Just Walk Out Tech to Pop-Up Stores
January 13, 2026
Amazon says it is bringing its “Just Walk Out” checkout technology to temporary retail locations. The company on Tuesday (Jan. 13) announced the debut of the latest iteration of its radio ...Read moreDoes Google’s Agentic Partnership With Walmart Signal the End of Click-and-Buy Retail?
January 13, 2026
What’s next in commerce and retail changes almost every day. But some days bring bigger changes than others. Sunday (Jan. 11) was one of those days, with the announcement that Google ...Read moreMid-Tier Retailers Caught Between Amazon and Walmart
January 13, 2026
For decades, the retail industry was organized around a familiar axis: price versus experience, scale versus specialization, mass versus premium. That framework is no longer sufficient. Findings in the December 2025 ...Read moreWayfair Participates in Google’s New Standard for Agentic Commerce
January 12, 2026
Wayfair said Monday (Jan. 12) that it participated in the development of Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) for agentic commerce and will soon enable shoppers to check out directly from ...Read moreWalmart Teams With Google to Promote ‘Agent-Led Commerce’
January 11, 2026
Walmart has launched an agentic commerce partnership with Google. The collaboration, announced Sunday (Jan. 11), is built around Google’s new Universal Commerce Protocol and pairs Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) tool ...Read moreGoogle Debuts ‘Universal’ Protocol for Agentic Commerce
January 11, 2026
Google has launched an agentic commerce standard dubbed the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). Announced Sunday (Jan. 11) at the National Retail Federation (NRF) annual event, the UCP is designed to “work ...Read moreWalmart’s OnePay Employee Share Repurchase Hints at $4 Billion Valuation
January 11, 2026
Walmart-backed FinTech OnePay is now reportedly a $4 billion company. OnePay reached that valuation, up from $2.5 billion in 2024, after repurchasing shares from employees, Bloomberg News reported Friday (Jan. 9), ...Read moreAmazon Plans to Build Big-Box Store Near Chicago
January 9, 2026
Amazon reportedly plans to open a big-box store comparable to a Walmart or Target location in a Chicago suburb. The 229,000-square-foot facility would sell groceries, general merchandise and prepared foods, Bloomberg ...Read moreWalmart Launches Digital Destination Focused on Health and Wellness
January 8, 2026
Walmart has launched a digital destination designed to help customers access health and wellness services and products. The new Better Care Services offers access to third-party providers for urgent care and ...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
From Warehouses to Last Mile, AI Is Rewiring Logistics at Global Scale
January 8, 2026
As the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026 continues its familiar flood of hardware launches and futuristic demos, one of the most consequential technology stories was largely invisible. It was unfolding ...Read moreBig Tech Kicks off 2026 With AI Product Updates and Releases
January 6, 2026
Big Tech started the new year with a series of artificial intelligence (AI) updates, including releases at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026 conference in Las Vegas, once again underscoring ...Read moreAI Leaves the Screen and Enters the Living Room
January 5, 2026
Everybody wants technology that can take over household chores, and at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, major tech companies suggested that moment may be closer than it once seemed. At the ...Read moreInside the AI Upgrades Reshaping Consumer Devices
December 30, 2025
Ahead of CES 2026 next week in Las Vegas, several consumer electronics manufacturers are previewing hardware products built on specific, identifiable artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The devices span wearables, mixed-reality ...Read moreSnap and Meta Lead CES AI Showcase
December 29, 2025
This year’s edition of the consumer technology conference CES is reportedly set to feature a variety of products whose main selling point is artificial intelligence (AI). Exhibitors at the Jan. 6-9, ...Read moreRetailers Turn to AI and Robotics to Keep Holiday Fulfillment on Track
December 22, 2025
As peak holiday demand stretches supply chains to their limits, global retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Target are leaning heavily on artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to move goods faster, ...Read moreSoftBank and Nvidia Consider Joining Funding Round for Robotics Firm Skild AI
December 8, 2025
SoftBank Group and Nvidia are reportedly in talks to participate in a more than $1 billion funding round for Skild AI, a maker of foundation models for robots. The round, which ...Read moreBaobab Ventures Debuts $15 Million Fund for AI Projects
November 26, 2025
Tech investor Carles Reina has launched a fund focusing on artificial intelligence, robotics and defense. The $15 million Baobab Ventures fund will focus on pre-seed and seed technical teams and has already closed seven deals, ...Read moreThe Weekender: Robots, Robots Everywhere (Even at the Litter Box)
November 22, 2025
Blame the elves. They saw generative artificial intelligence (AI) coming for their jobs and outsourced Christmas to robots. This holiday season, the digital economy’s strangest edges have gone gloriously mainstream: ...Read morePhysical AI Moves from Automation to a New Workforce Layer
November 18, 2025
Physical AI is emerging as the next stage of robotics as advances in sensing, perception and large AI models give machines capabilities that traditional automation never supported. Earlier robots followed ...Read more
Saks Seeks Bankruptcy Protection and Names New CEO
January 14, 2026
Luxury retail company Saks Global has declared bankruptcy amid mounting debts. The company, which owns Saks Fifth Avenue stores as well as department stores Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus, entered Chapter ...Read moreAmazon Brings Just Walk Out Tech to Pop-Up Stores
January 13, 2026Amazon says it is bringing its “Just Walk Out” checkout technology to temporary retail locations. The company on Tuesday (Jan. 13) announced the debut of the latest iteration of its radio ...Read moreDoes Google’s Agentic Partnership With Walmart Signal the End of Click-and-Buy Retail?
January 13, 2026What’s next in commerce and retail changes almost every day. But some days bring bigger changes than others. Sunday (Jan. 11) was one of those days, with the announcement that Google ...Read moreMid-Tier Retailers Caught Between Amazon and Walmart
January 13, 2026For decades, the retail industry was organized around a familiar axis: price versus experience, scale versus specialization, mass versus premium. That framework is no longer sufficient. Findings in the December 2025 ...Read moreWayfair Participates in Google’s New Standard for Agentic Commerce
January 12, 2026Wayfair said Monday (Jan. 12) that it participated in the development of Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) for agentic commerce and will soon enable shoppers to check out directly from ...Read moreKroger, Papa Johns Test Gemini AI Agents for Retail
January 12, 2026
Google Cloud introduced Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience, a platform designed to help retailers deploy artificial intelligence (AI) agents that can support shopping, ordering and customer service across digital channels. ...Read moreWalmart Teams With Google to Promote ‘Agent-Led Commerce’
January 11, 2026Walmart has launched an agentic commerce partnership with Google. The collaboration, announced Sunday (Jan. 11), is built around Google’s new Universal Commerce Protocol and pairs Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) tool ...Read moreWalmart’s OnePay Employee Share Repurchase Hints at $4 Billion Valuation
January 11, 2026Walmart-backed FinTech OnePay is now reportedly a $4 billion company. OnePay reached that valuation, up from $2.5 billion in 2024, after repurchasing shares from employees, Bloomberg News reported Friday (Jan. 9), ...Read moreInside the NFL’s Strategy to Monetize Every Second of Super Bowl Week
January 10, 2026
The Super Bowl has always been a game. It’s also a retail ecosystem with shoulder pads. For one Sunday (and increasingly, for a full week), the NFL turns fandom into an add-to-cart ...Read moreSaks Global Weighs Competing Bankruptcy Financing Offers
January 9, 2026
Saks Global is reportedly weighing two competing offers of bankruptcy financing packages as it prepares to file for bankruptcy. The company, which owns Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus, is looking ...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