Customers will interact with ChatGPT (or a similar AI chatbot) on each platform's website or app, asking about products, getting recommendations, and receiving direct purchase options. They can complete transactions within the chat interface, including product selection, cart management, and payment, for a seamless, conversational shopping experience.

Sparky AI is Walmart’s proprietary shopping assistant, designed for product discovery, recommendations, and customer queries specific to Walmart’s large inventory and third-party sellers. ChatGPT, integrated by OpenAI, is a more general-purpose conversational AI that enables personalized, natural-language shopping interactions. Both aim to make shopping easier, but Sparky is tailored to Walmart’s ecosystem, while ChatGPT is a broader solution deployed across several e-commerce platforms.

Sellers on Shopify and Etsy can offer their customers a more engaging, personalized, and efficient shopping experience with chatbot-driven product discovery and purchase. This helps smaller sellers compete with larger retailers by providing advanced AI capabilities, potentially increasing sales, reducing cart abandonment, and improving customer satisfaction.

Investor funding enables OpenAI to scale its AI infrastructure, develop advanced commerce features, and secure partnerships with major retailers. Companies like Nvidia provide the necessary computing power (e.g., GPUs for AI model training and inference) to handle the high demand and real-time interactions required for seamless, large-scale e-commerce integrations.