Walmart's Sparky Chatbot Is Replacing OpenAI's Failed Instant Checkout Experiment

Walmart and OpenAI Abandon Failing Checkout Experiment for Smarter AI Shopping

What seemed like a bold leap into the future of AI-powered retail has quietly stumbled. Since November, Walmart has been testing a feature that allowed certain ChatGPT users to purchase products directly inside the chatbot — no website visit required. The verdict, according to a senior Walmart executive, is that it hasn't worked.

How Instant Checkout Fell Short

The concept was straightforward enough. OpenAI, looking to monetize ChatGPT through transaction commissions, teamed up with Walmart, Etsy, and several other retailers on a feature called Instant Checkout. Walmart made roughly 200,000 products available for purchase directly within ChatGPT conversations, letting shoppers enter their payment and shipping details without ever leaving the chat interface.

But the numbers told a different story. According to Daniel Danker, Walmart's executive vice president overseeing product and design, conversion rates for items purchased directly inside ChatGPT were three times lower than for items that required users to click through to Walmart's website. In the world of ecommerce, that's a significant gap — and a clear signal that something was fundamentally broken.

The Core Problem: One Item at a Time

Danker points to a specific friction point that he believes drove consumers away. Instant Checkout was designed to process purchases one item at a time, which clashed directly with how people actually shop. Most customers already had items sitting in their Walmart cart. Being prompted to check out a single product — triggering a separate delivery box and an interrupted cart — felt disjointed and uncomfortable.

"They fear that when checkout happens automatically after every single item, they're going to receive five boxes when they actually just want it all in one," Danker explained. Rather than spend years attempting to patch what he described as an "unsatisfying" user experience, OpenAI chose to move quickly toward a new approach — one that Walmart had long preferred.

Enter Sparky: A Chatbot Within a Chatbot

Starting next week, Walmart's own AI shopping assistant, Sparky, will begin operating inside ChatGPT. The following month, a similar integration will go live within Google's Gemini. The setup essentially embeds one chatbot inside another — and that's precisely the point.

Unlike the rigid, single-item checkout flow of its predecessor, Sparky brings the full Walmart shopping experience into whichever platform a user happens to be on. Customers who log into Sparky through ChatGPT will find their existing Walmart cart — items added on the app, the website, or directly in chat — synchronized across all touchpoints.

The vision Danker describes is fluid and customer-centric. Someone might add peanut butter to their Walmart app on Monday, pick up aluminum foil on the website mid-week, and throw in a last-minute birthday gift through ChatGPT before checking out in one seamless transaction. "When Sparky travels, it's the Walmart store meeting you where you are," Danker said.

What Has Actually Been Selling Through ChatGPT

Despite the underwhelming overall results, certain product categories did find an audience through Instant Checkout. Vitamin and protein supplements performed particularly well — partly driven by users asking ChatGPT about GLP-1 weight-loss medications and receiving advice to boost their nutrient intake. Higher-priced items also tended to sell better, since their order values helped shoppers avoid added shipping or small-basket fees.

In total, the automotive, beauty, home management, hardware, and tools categories combined for more than half of all Instant Checkout orders — a pattern that gives Walmart useful data as it refines the Sparky experience.

Why Walmart Is Doubling Down on ChatGPT Integration

For all its early frustrations, Walmart sees enormous long-term potential in AI chatbot platforms. ChatGPT is now delivering approximately twice the rate of new customers compared to traditional search engines, according to Danker. He attributes this partly to the fact that typical ChatGPT power users aren't typical Walmart shoppers — making the platform a genuine channel for customer acquisition.

Walmart's competitive pricing, wide product selection, and extensive logistics network mean its products appear frequently in ChatGPT responses, giving the retailer a natural presence in AI-driven shopping conversations.

How Sparky Works Under the Hood

Sparky was built in-house by Walmart's technology teams. It runs on a combination of open-source generative AI models layered with proprietary models trained on decades of Walmart's retail data. The system is designed to route different types of questions to the most capable model available, rather than relying on a single AI engine.

The assistant is also intentionally adaptable in its appearance — capable of adjusting its look and feel to blend naturally into different platform environments, whether that's ChatGPT, Gemini, or Walmart's own app.

While Sparky has drawn some criticism from users on Reddit — and glowing testimonials are hard to come by on social media — Walmart reports that half of its app users have engaged with it. More encouragingly, Walmart US CEO David Guggina recently noted that Sparky users spend approximately 35 percent more per order than shoppers who don't use the assistant.

Danker openly acknowledges that Sparky still has weaknesses. It can be slow and occasionally produces unhelpful responses. The focus for the rest of this year, he says, is making Sparky faster, more proactive, better attuned to individual shoppers, and more capable across departments like pharmacy.

Walmart Isn't Locking Out Competing AI Agents

Unlike Amazon, which recently obtained a court order to stop Perplexity's AI technology from impersonating human users to make purchases, Walmart is taking a more open stance. Danker says Walmart has no plans to block third-party AI agents from shopping on its platform, provided the experience remains clean — no wrong orders, no surprise charges, no flood of customer service complaints.

"We don't want to be prescriptive of the exact journey that every customer is going to take," Danker said. "We don't want to block things on a speculative or hypothetical concern."

The Bigger Picture: Will AI Ever Truly Own Shopping?

The story of Instant Checkout's failure is a useful reality check for anyone expecting AI agents to fully take over ecommerce in the near term. Danker himself is skeptical of the most sweeping predictions. "This idea that it will all become automated might be a little bit far-fetched," he said. "People do get excited about shopping for clothes, for their home, for their children."

The future Walmart is building toward isn't one where AI replaces the shopper — it's one where AI travels alongside them, ready to help whenever and wherever they need it.