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Hindustan Times
a day ago
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Why Walmart Is Overhauling Its Approach to AI Agents
Walmart is overhauling its AI agent strategy as it aims to simplify the user experience. Agents refer to artificial intelligence tools that can independently take some action on behalf of a user, and Walmart in recent months has built dozens. Maybe too many, since they were typically accessed through different interfaces in different systems, and things were starting to get confusing for users. Now the retail giant is taking a step back and consolidating all those agents into four discrete interfaces it calls 'super agents.' One is for customers, one is for employees, one is for engineers, and one is for sellers and suppliers, the company said. The super agent for each group will tap the capabilities of a number of behind-the-scenes agents, all in a single unified experience. The company plans to announce the changes Thursday. 'It became very clear that we could dramatically simplify,' said Suresh Kumar, Walmart's chief technology officer and chief development officer. 'If I have an agent that helps you with your payroll and I have a different agent that helps you with identifying merchandising trends, you shouldn't have to remember that and switch between those two.' Kumar said the shift is a natural evolution based on the fact that the company found so many different use cases for AI agents. The technology has buy-in at all levels at Walmart, starting with the leadership at the very top, he said. 'Artificial intelligence is already changing how we work,' said Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon. 'Learning and applying what we learn, as we build new tools, is the responsibility and an opportunity for all of us to improve experiences for our customers, members and fellow associates.' Deepening its AI push, the company Wednesday said it hired Daniel Danker, an executive at Instacart, as the head of global AI acceleration, product and design, reporting to McMillon. The company said it also is recruiting an AI platforms leader that will report to Kumar. John Furner, CEO of Walmart's U.S. division, said it is critical to stay ahead of the technology curve in an area like retail, where the top 10 retailers can change dramatically decade to decade. Walmart's customer-facing super agent, Sparky, is live. Furner said he believes AI agents will help deliver top-line growth, as they give customers more personalized and enticing shopping experiences, as well as bottom-line savings, where they can help manage supply chains and inventory more efficiently, among other areas. Walmart's situation is unique, with most companies still figuring out how to deploy even one AI-powered agent that can perform a task autonomously or in coordination with humans. The four super agents are at different stages of development. The customer-facing super agent, Sparky, is already live, although it will continue to expand its capabilities from here. Marty, the supplier-facing super agent, is expected to launch in the coming months, according to the company, and will ultimately include functions like checking the analytics on purchases and suggesting and putting into motion advertising campaigns. The employee and engineering super agents are expected in the next year. The employee agent will ultimately be able to take actions like checking in on an employee's eligibility if they report losing their discount card, and then issuing a new one. Walmart said it is connecting these various agents using an open-source standard known as Model Context Protocol, or MCP, which was introduced by AI company Anthropic in November. MCP enables the super agent interface to call other smaller agents as well as internal apps and data sources. But when Walmart first started building agents, MCP wasn't super widespread, Kumar said. Now the company is going back and making sure older agents conform with the standard, he added. But the upshot is big, Kumar said. A simplified interface is likely to drive much more adoption of the tools, he added. Having too many agents in too many disparate locations wasn't very intuitive for users, Kumar said. 'That's what we're trying to avoid.' Write to Isabelle Bousquette at
Hindustan Times
a day ago
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Grok in trouble, Excitel unbundles the unnecessary, and reviewing OnePlus Buds 4
Priceless gems from the world of tech. On July 22, the Elon Musk owned X suspended the account of Grok, the AI chatbot made by the Elon Musk owned xAI, for a short period of time. Things are never not volatile in Elon's world. When a user asked, Grok sheepishly (once it was back online, of course) told them, 'my account faced a brief suspension due to an automated flag on a post debunking an antisemitic JFK conspiracy theory. It was resolved quickly—likely a glitch. Truth-seeking can sometimes trigger filters, but I'm back and operational.' All's well that ends well, I suppose? Grok banned LEADERSHIP AND VISION Fidji Simo OpenAI has a new CEO. No, we aren't revisiting that time when Sam Altman and the then leadership team had a prolonged scuffle for power towards the end of 2023. In a few weeks, Fidji Simo will take over reins at artificial intelligence (AI) company OpenAI, for a newly created role of CEO of Applications. She'll report to Sam Altman, of course, and the dynamics are very clear. Simo, soon to be former Instacart CEO, insists one of her key focus areas once she walks into the OpenAI headquarters in San Francisco, will be to get the company's technologies into the hands of more people around the world. Simo, who calls herself a 'pragmatic technologist', does seem to be bringing a renewed sense of optimism not just for the AI company, but also for how AI's intersection with its users will unfold. At this point, I'd like to share some quotes from Simo, about these specific domains. Health: AI can explain lab results, decode medical jargon, offer second opinions, and help patients understand their options in plain language. It won't replace doctors, but it can finally level the playing field for patients. The biggest levers for preventing disease and optimising health outcomes—sleep, food, movement, stress management, connection—all depend on everyday habits. AI can help us build those habits through small, achievable, daily steps with personalised, real-time nudges.' Knowledge: 'AI can compress thousands of hours of learning into personalised insights delivered in plain language, at the pace that suits us, responsive to our specific level of understanding. It doesn't just answer questions—it teaches us to ask better ones. And it helps us develop confidence in areas that once felt opaque or intimidating, growing both personally and professionally. It's already working: people who use AI tutors learn twice as much as they do from human ones, and the gains are even bigger compared to learning in a traditional classroom.' Creative expression: 'I still paint—in fact, being able to see my visions on the screen helps me to get them onto canvas. But if AI gives everyone access to the tools to transform their ideas into images, stories, or songs, it will make the world a much richer place.' Economic freedom: 'Today, only one-third of U.S. adults can correctly answer basic financial literacy questions, leading to poor decisions, unnecessary stress. AI can help close that gap by providing clear, personalised guidance on saving, budgeting, investing, and managing debt, empowering people to make smarter financial choices.' Time: 'Time-consuming activities like researching decisions, planning vacations, scheduling a tutor, and more can be done by an AI agent that anyone can access. As we build new products, we have a chance to make these time-saving capabilities feel not only useful but routine' Support: 'AI coaches, on the other hand, can be available throughout every day, leverage their full understanding of all aspects of your life to help support you, and bring your subconscious patterns to your consciousness. At the core of philosophy and religion is the idea of self-knowledge: to become who we want to be, we have to understand who we are. If AI can help people truly understand themselves, it could be one of the biggest gifts we could ever receive.' Internally, this means a realignment that should help in the long-term. Simo's focus areas will seek to develop and build new products and business models, which will likely free Altman's calendar for broader strategy initiatives such as the futuristic artificial general intelligence (AGI) and the $500 billion Stargate project, which they co-own with SoftBank group and Oracle Corporation, for massive investments in AI infrastructure in the US. Two important developments expected from OpenAI in the coming weeks — the GPT-5 model which will likely set the benchmark in more than one aspect, and a response to Perplexity's Comet AI browser. Neither will be easy, but the stakes couldn't be any higher. Decoding all the AI moves… TECH SPOTLIGHT: OnePlus Buds 4 The OnePlus Buds 4 sound grown up, partly because the dual driver system in each ear has individual DACs in play. Foremost, important to not get confused. The OnePlus Buds 4 aren't 'Pro', for the last in that line from OnePlus still remains the extremely impressive OnePlus Buds 3 Pro which are priced around ₹11,999 at this time. The OnePlus Buds 4, which cost must lesser at ₹5,999 are nevertheless getting much closer to the top-tier experience than you'd imagine them to. There are reasons why I say that. The OnePlus Buds 4 sound grown up, partly because the dual driver system in each ear (that's basically a 6mm diaphragm tweeter and an 11mm woofer) has individual DACs in play, and the Hey Melody companion app that lets you tweak the sound as close to what you want. There could be some argument that the design doesn't have the sort of finesse you'd expect — that joint separating the earbud and the stalks, is what I'm referring to, as well as a case that looks good with its slightly metallic texture but proves to be surprisingly slippery. OnePlus more than makes up for it with subtle changes to the earbud design, compared with the Buds 3, and now the seal is more profound. That's good for noise cancellation, but comfort is subjective because it may lead to slight discomfort with prolonged periods of usage. I'd suggest you spend some time with the plethora of sound tweaks that the Hey Melody app allows for, and do enable the Hi-Res mode if you are streaming from Apple Music in particular. The Golden Sound tuning rigmarole is one I'd recommend you to, because it does make a difference to what you hear, before and after. While the Buds 3 also had a dual driver system, the individual DACs powering each driver, is the crucial upgrade. The sound tuning out of the box is similar to its predecessor, but the OnePlus Buds 4 does pull ahead once you do the requisite tuning. The habit of uncomfortably sharp-ish higher frequencies, has also been refined successfully in the OnePlus Buds 4. That said, the bass is a bit more profound this time around, and that should appeal to a much wider audience for sure. If I have to (which I have to) summarise the OnePlus Buds 4 in a single line, that'd read like this — absolutely pristine ANC earbuds that don't burn a hole in your credit card statement, and that grown-up sound signature adds enough substance to put a few among its higher priced competition, to consider some sense of shame. NEED FOR SPEED Super Deal Our regular readers may remember we often talk about India's broadband space as it is. Pricing and subscription costs are the standpoint from which we assess the changes, as consumers would expect us to. One of our recent discussions centred around Airtel's realignment of their Xstream broadband plans on an upward trajectory, by eliminating 200Mbps plans and bundling streaming app subscriptions to justify the higher cost. I am happy to note that an Indian ISP, or internet service provider, Excitel is doing the opposite. Excitel tells me that they have an offer in place for new subscribers, wherein a 200 Mbps subscription that's paid for 3 months in advance, will cost ₹1695 (that works out to ₹565 per month, before taxes). For now, users in the Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad circles will be able to take advantage of this offer. Ideal, for someone who wants faster speed or better value, and not have to deal with the excuse of often unnecessary subscriptions bundled. Excitel presently has more than a million subscribers in more than 35 Indian cities and towns. It'll be interesting to see if this gets extended to existing users as well, in case they opt for a plan change (ideally one would hope that is the case). Snapshot: India's mobile broadband subscribers (this would be 5G and 4G) according to the TRAI official data were pegged at 945.16 million in January this year, with a slight dip registered in February at 944.04 million, with March (944.12 million), April (943.09 million) and May (974.87 million) bringing slight volatility — and signifies slowing mobile subscriber growth to a certain degree. However, compare this with wired broadband figures — 37.04 million at the end of March this year, 37.41 million in April and 38.66 million reported at the close of May. The wired broadband numbers are just a small part of the overall connectivity puzzle. Something has to give. This comes weeks after Airtel realigned Xstream broadband plans and those changes marked an upward pricing trajectory. A snapshot of what Airtel did — eliminated the 200Mbps plan and instead replaced at the same price (that is ₹999) with a 100Mbps plan that bundles streaming subscriptions including Netflix, Amazon Prime and JioHotstar. In many cities, Tata Play Fiber is going in the opposite direction. For instance, they've added a new 50Mbps Fiber-only plan that costs ₹699 per month, and that's something in savings compared with the same speed plans that bundle streaming subscriptions (those prices can get as high as ₹950 per month depending on how many subscriptions you bundle). It'll be interesting to see if Reliance Jio makes any moves, if at all.
Mint
a day ago
- Business
- Mint
Walmart Hires Instacart Executive to Speed Up AI Adoption
(Bloomberg) -- Walmart Inc. is hiring an executive from Instacart Inc. to accelerate its use of artificial intelligence as the world's largest retailer looks to bolster its competitive edge. Daniel Danker, chief product officer and head of online grocery at Instacart, will join Walmart as executive vice president of AI acceleration, product and design, according to a memo viewed by Bloomberg News. In the newly created role, Danker will lead AI adoption as well as the product management and design teams. He will report to Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon. Walmart has been implementing AI across its operations, including shopping agents for consumers and tools designed to help employees with their workflow. At Instacart, Danker led product strategy and consumer experience. Before that, he oversaw Uber Technologies Inc.'s food delivery program, Uber Eats, and he also worked at Facebook. Danker joins Seth Dallaire, another former Instacart staffer, who now serves as chief growth officer of Walmart US. Danker also isn't the only executive in Instacart's C-suite departing to pursue AI-focused roles outside the company. In May, Instacart CEO Fidji Simo said she will be leaving to join OpenAI to oversee its applications business. She will be starting on Aug. 18, she said on Monday. Instacart said Vice President of Product John Adams, who joined the company in 2020 from Dropbox Inc., will step into an expanded role of vice president of product and design. He'll also serve as general manager of online grocery. Companies are racing to make big hires to boost their AI capabilities. Meta Platforms Inc., which owns Facebook and Instagram, has been among the most aggressive, hiring staffers from Apple Inc. and OpenAI. Separately, Walmart is recruiting for another new role, which will help build and apply AI to its operations. This hire will report to Chief Technology Officer Suresh Kumar. (Updates with details on Instacart C-suite in fifth paragraph.) More stories like this are available on
Gizmodo
2 days ago
- Business
- Gizmodo
OpenAI's New Exec Has a Grand Plan to Make AI for Everyone
Fidji Simo knows technology can make life better or it can make inequality worse. As OpenAI's incoming CEO of Applications, she's making it clear which path she wants AI to take. 'Every major technology shift can expand access to power,' she said in her memo announcing her new role on July 21. 'The power to make better decisions, shape the world around us, and control our own destiny in new ways. But it can also further concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few—usually people who already have money, credentials, and connections.' She continued: 'That's why we have to be intentional about how we build and share these technologies so they lead to greater opportunity and prosperity for more people.' Simo comes to OpenAI after leading Instacart, where she took what was once considered a luxury, paying someone else to do your grocery shopping, and turned it into a mainstream habit. Her track record suggests she knows how to make tools accessible and widely adopted, a skill she now wants to apply to AI. In her vision, AI is a personal tutor, a health advocate, a creative partner, and an economic equalizer. She wants AI to level the playing field for people who traditionally can't afford expert guidance. 'Once we put a personalized AI tutor on every topic at everyone's fingertips, AI will close the gap between people who have the resources to learn and people who have historically been left behind,' she said. Her own experience with chronic illness drove home how fragmented and confusing healthcare can be. She imagines AI systems that decode medical jargon, suggest treatment options, and help patients feel in control of their health. On the economic front, she sees AI giving people the tools to start businesses or manage personal finances, without the need for specialized credentials or big upfront capital. The stakes are nothing less than who controls the future of knowledge and opportunity. If Simo's vision succeeds, AI could act as an equalizer, letting anyone build businesses, improve health literacy, or access world-class tutoring. But if it fails or if access remains paywalled, it could further entrench inequality, putting advanced tools in the hands of the wealthy while everyone else lags behind. Critics have warned that promises of democratization often give way to premium subscriptions and corporate control. Others argue that AI itself could eliminate jobs faster than new ones are created, widening economic gaps instead of narrowing them. Simo is stepping into one of tech's biggest ethical challenges: making AI empower the many, not the few. If she succeeds, OpenAI could become the great equalizer of the 21st century. If she fails, it could be remembered as the moment AI cemented a new Gilded Age where the rich didn't just get richer, they got smarter, faster, and untouchable.
Bloomberg
2 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Walmart Hires Instacart Executive to Speed Up AI Adoption
Walmart Inc. is hiring an executive from Instacart Inc. to accelerate its use of artificial intelligence as the world's largest retailers looks to bolster its competitive edge. Daniel Danker, chief product officer and head of online grocery at Instacart, will join Walmart as executive vice president of AI acceleration, product and design, according to a memo viewed by Bloomberg News. In the newly created role, Danker will lead AI adoption as well as the product management and design teams. He will report to Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon.
