It sounds more like the noise of artificial intelligence reconfiguring how consumers in the United States shop, how retailers sell, and how the world’s largest commerce platforms think about their future.
Walmart, for example, announced Tuesday (Oct. 14) that it partnered with OpenAI to create AI-first shopping experiences, allowing customers and Sam’s Club members to complete purchases directly within ChatGPT using Instant Checkout.
Meanwhile, it was reported Tuesday that Amazon is cutting up to 15% of its human resources staff as it intensifies its own investment in AI and automation.
For decades, retail technology innovation has followed the gradual infusion of data into static systems. Recommendation engines on eCommerce sites predicted what you might like based on past purchases. Inventory systems forecasted demand using historical trends. Chatbots offered customer service within scripted boundaries.
Generative AI and the coming wave of agentic AI are upending that hierarchy.
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It’s not hard to see why the largest retailers, such as Walmart and Amazon, are moving quickly. Whoever controls these AI systems and the data they generate will control the next major interface for commerce. If the web browser was the storefront of the 2000s, and the mobile app was the gateway of the 2010s, the 2020s may belong to the conversational AI agent. It’s an interface without a screen, but with infinite reach.
Read also: Walmart and Amazon Race to Merge Physical Scale With Digital Intelligence
Moving From Recommendations to Real-Time Personalization
There’s a tendency in retail to view every new technology as a channel, like mobile, voice and augmented reality. Generative AI is not a channel; it’s a substrate. It underpins how data is processed, how products are discovered, and how relationships are formed. Moves by Walmart and Amazon are not one-off experiments; they’re early steps in a multiyear rebuild of retail itself.
Walmart’s new OpenAI partnership represents one of the first large-scale attempts to merge natural conversation with commerce execution. Instead of clicking through categories, users can tell ChatGPT what they need and receive not just recommendations but shoppable lists directly tied to Walmart’s catalog. Purchases can be completed within the chat itself, closing the gap between discovery and conversion.
It also repositions Walmart in the tech ecosystem. By integrating with ChatGPT, the retailer extends its reach into millions of AI-powered interactions that occur outside its own website or app. It’s a distribution strategy that mirrors what happened with mobile commerce a decade ago.
Amazon isn’t standing still, either. Amazon Web Services on Oct. 9 launched Quick Suite, a new agentic AI platform designed to act as a virtual teammate for employees.
On Wednesday (Oct. 15), Amazon and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) announced the launch of the CMU-Amazon AI Innovation Hub, which will research generative AI, robotics, natural language processing and cloud computing technologies.
Taken together, the moves suggest that Amazon’s next big bet could be on proprietary models that blend symbolic reasoning (logic-based decision systems) with deep learning.
See also: Amazon Tests Loyalty as Walmart Tests Gravity
Rebuilding the Holiday Supply Chain
No discussion of October retail would be complete without a nod to the coming holiday shopping season.
Amazon’s Monday (Oct. 13) announcement that it will again hire 250,000 workers for the 2025 holiday season underscores its determination to brace for peak demand. That number mirrors its hiring in 2023 and 2024, signaling a deliberate choice to hold steady rather than expand headcount amid concerns about consumer spending, tariffs and shifting labor dynamics.
This hiring comes just as Amazon’s relationship with its independent seller community is being reworked. Beginning next year, fees tied to Amazon’s fulfillment and referral services for third-party sellers will rise by an average of $0.08 per unit sold. That’s less than 0.5% of an average item’s selling price, but it’s meaningful at scale.
At the same time, Walmart’s 2025 Open Call provides a narrative counterweight to Amazon’s seller fee hike. In its 12th edition, Walmart invited over 500 entrepreneurs to pitch products made, grown or assembled in the U.S., ultimately awarding more than 100 “Golden Tickets” that give businesses access to sell through Walmart and Sam’s Club. The company emphasized its $350 billion 10-year commitment to U.S. sourcing, of which $176 billion has already been spent.
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