In this quick breakdown of my latest Forbes piece, I walk you through Walmart’s new four-part agentic AI roadmap—Sparky for shoppers, Marty for suppliers/advertisers, an Associate agent for store teams, and a Developer agent for internal builders. The headline? Walmart executives say Sparky’s multimodal interface will eventually make the classic search bar feel as ancient as the old Yahoo! directory days, fundamentally changing how we find and buy products

I also unpack why Walmart’s open-ecosystem gamble starkly contrasts Amazon’s walled-garden push with Rufus and Alexa—and how that sets the stage for true agent-to-agent commerce, where your personal AI haggles with Walmart’s systems on your behalf

Timeline of Highlights

• [0:00] Bold forecast: search bars are “on borrowed time” as Sparky rolls out
• [2:00] From web directories ➜ search engines ➜ AI chat—history repeats itself
• [3:00] How Walmart’s hundreds of millions of weekly shoppers can shift mainstream behavior
• [4:00] Sparky vs. Amazon’s Rufus: late start, bigger leap, broader ambition
• [7:00] Looking ahead to agent-to-agent commerce and voice/vision interactions
• [10:00] Takeaways: 70 % of express orders in < 1 hr & why “AI shoppers don’t scroll”

Links & Resources

• Forbes: “Walmart Reveals AI Roadmap That Points to a World Without Search Bars” (July 24 2025)
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