Walmart fires OpenAI in playbook-changing move

As one of the world’s largest retailers, Walmart is hyperfocused on making it as easy for its customers to shop as possible.

From digital price labels that update in real time to one-hour pick-up and delivery windows to the third-party-friendly Walmart Marketplace, the company has worked hard to make getting what you need as effortless as possible.

Which is why the news that Walmart was partnering with OpenAI came as no surprise to regular store-goers.

“Walmart has partnered with OpenAI to create AI-first shopping experiences, starting with allowing customers and members to soon shop Walmart through ChatGPT using Instant Checkout,” the October 2025 announcement read.

“This allows customers and Sam’s Club members to plan meals, restock essentials, or discover new products simply by chatting — Walmart will take care of the rest.”

Both Walmart CEO Doug McMillon and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman were enthusiastic about the partnership, noting the major impact it would have on the future of e-commerce.

But just five months later, it seems that some of that enthusiasm has waned.

Walmart is pulling the plug on OpenAI’s Instant Checkout

Walmart has quietly been testing OpenAI’s Instant Checkout feature since October. But in mid-March, the retailer said it was pulling the plug on the feature and would be embedding its own chatbot, Sparky, into platforms like ChatGPT and Google Gemini.

Sources familiar with the partnership told TechBuzz that Walmart had hit a few major speedbumps with OpenAI’s Instant Checkout. The feature reportedly struggled with accuracy and was unable to match with Walmart’s internal shopping tools.

As a result, conversion rates for OpenAI orders fell well below what Walmart typically sees with its own channels.

“We learned [through the partnership] that our customers want consistency across every touchpoint,” a Walmart spokesman told TechBuzz.

Walmart is placing its homegrown shopping assistant, Sparky, on AI platforms including ChatGPT and Google Gemini.

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The Sparky solution

To ensure it could provide that consistency by maintaining full control of the shopping experience, Walmart opted to embed its homegrown shopping assistant, Sparky, on AI platforms.

The company has been using Sparky on its website and various mobile apps since 2025.

As of March 20, the feature is available to ChatGPT Plus and Gemini Advanced subscribers. It will roll out to free-tier users later this spring, and the company is reportedly in conversation with Anthropic about eventually using it on Claude.

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Early tests of the change are encouraging.

Users who have accessed Sparky through ChatGPT complete purchases at about 70% of the rate of those who make purchases through Walmart.com directly, according to TechBuzz.

While no solid conversion numbers from the Instant Checkout era have been disclosed, sources with knowledge of the matter told the outlet that these Sparky rates are much higher.

The problem with Instant Checkout

After its partnership with Walmart ended, OpenAI shared that it was transitioning the way it was thinking about and using Instant Checkout.

“Instant Checkout is moving to Apps, where purchases can happen more seamlessly,” an OpenAI spokesperson told CNBC.

The issue with Instant Checkout is that it obtains its data by scraping partner retailers’ websites. While this gave the feature an idea of product options, it was unable to verify things like whether those products were in stock or what delivery times would actually look like.

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“Crawling and scraping is inadequate to get the full breadth of product data that you need to do a good job of commerce,” Emily Pfeiffer, principle analyst at research advisory firm Forrester, told CNBC.

Gartner analyst Bob Hetu explained to the outlet that OpenAI simply underestimated how complex agentic AI shopping could be.

“OpenAI underestimated how difficult the enablement of transactions was going to be, which, on the one hand, is a little surprising, but on the other hand, it’s not easy for retailers,” he told CNBC.

Retailers are stepping away from Instant Checkout, wholesale

Walmart isn’t the only retailer stepping away from OpenAI’s Instant Checkout.

At an investor conference in March, Walmart Executive VP of AI Acceleration, Product, & Design Daniel Danker called the feature “a very temporary moment in time.”

“By this time next month, you will not see that experience anymore,” he told investors, according to CNBC.

A partial list of companies that have elected to embed their own retail apps on AI platforms include: