Walmart partners with OpenAI for ChatGPT shopping feature

Shares of the company rose five percent to $107.21 at market close following the announcement.

The world's largest retailer is expanding its use of artificial intelligence as companies across sectors adopt the technology to simplify tasks and cut costs.

Walmart has announced AI tools, including generative AI-powered 'Sparky,' which is available on its app to assist customers with product suggestions or summarizing product reviews, among other options.

The company's growing investment in AI is also aimed at closing the gap with online behemoth Amazon, which had a head start with its chatbot, Rufus, a Gen AI-powered shopping assistant that answers various shopping queries.

Walmart's tie-up with the ChatGPT-maker follows a similar partnership OpenAI announced last month with Etsy and Shopify (SHOP.TO).

About 15 percent of total referral traffic for Walmart in September was from ChatGPT, up from 9.5 percent in August, data from SimilarWeb showed.

However, referrals are only a minor source of traffic and ChatGPT referrals accounted for less than one percent of total web traffic for Walmart, the research firm said.