Walmart and OpenAI announced a partnership yesterday that will allow shoppers to buy from Walmart using ChatGPT and its Instant Checkout product.
Seth Dallaire, EVP and Chief Growth Officer of Walmart US, said on LinkedIn yesterday:
“Walmart is joining forces with OpenAI to take shopping to the next level! Later this fall, customers will be able to shop directly within ChatGPT. This new AI-driven experience is about more than just convenience. It’s about meeting people where they are and delivering the same value, trust, and ease that Walmart has always been known for—wrapped in smarter, faster technology. And this is only the beginning. Watch this space—there’s more to come!”
Read more on LinkedIn. (October 14)
There is no mention in the press release of whether OpenAI will receive a cut from Walmart product sales – i.e. “affiliate marketing” – as has been reported with other partnerships such as OpenAI’s deals with Shopify and Etsy.
The “key takeaways,” according to Walmart, are three-fold:
- “Partnership will allow customers and members to complete purchases from Walmart directly within ChatGPT.“
- “Through AI-first shopping, the retail experience shifts from reactive to proactive as it learns, plans and predicts, helping customers anticipate their needs before they do.“
- “This partnership builds on the multiple ways Walmart and Sam’s Club are already using AI, like enhancing product catalogs, improving customer care resolution times and promoting AI literacy among associates.“
Let the data flow. A ChatGPT ads product cannot be far behind.
Read the press release. (October 14)
From tipsheet #1: If OpenAI is going to figure out whether shopping works in its answer engine, ChatGPT, Walmart is one of the two best partners OpenAI could have in the world today.
On that note, how long until Amazon pushes Anthropic to start using an Amazon product shopping feed in its answer engine, Claude? End of year?
(Amazon is a strategic investor in Anthropic.)
From tipsheet #2: For retail media buffs: What happens to retail media when all of retail is hooked up to ChatGPT and similar answer engines? How about… ads! For starters, the answer engine company provides ad space on the checkout confirmation page and takes a cut of any ads the retailer can sell?
From tipsheet #3: This might be disappointing for some, but there may be a coming AI-induced symbiosis moment where everyone realizes the answer engine is not the final destination and, in fact, needs a vibrant commerce, publishing and advertising ecosystem outside the chatbot/LLM. This won’t be inspired by altruism or regulation. It will just be the reality of what works (i.e. makes money).
And brands will still matter because we’re still human.
LLMS & CHATBOTS
Developments
- Salesforce Expands Partnerships With OpenAI, Anthropic To Support Ads, Websites (October 14) – MediaPost
- Google Announces First AI Hub in India, Bringing Company’s Full AI Stack and Consumer Services to Country (October 14) – Google Cloud
- Expert Council on Well-Being and AI (October 14) – OpenAI
EVENT COVERAGE
From Prebid Summit: Excited and afraid about AI
At yesterday’s Prebid Summit in New York City, a panel discussion titled simply, “LLMs” explored how Large Language Models (LLMs) are affecting the sell-side.
Panel moderator Jason Tollestrup, Head Of Monetization & Revenue Operations, The Washington Post began by asking participants from AWS, News Corp., Sovrn and Magnite a simple question:
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“What are you both excited about and what are you afraid of in terms of AI?”
Stephanie Layser, WW Head, Publisher Ad Tech Solutions, Amazon Web Services:
“For a really long time, publishers very much focused on scale. The programmatic ecosystem very much propped up this idea that if you reach scale, you were able to monetize it. (…) I would say that we’re now in a time period where publishers who have a high quality relationship with the user are the ones that will be successful. They’re the ones that will have a better understanding of their user. (…) My hope in this movement is that higher quality publishers will be able to rise to the top.
On what am I afraid of, I always talk a lot about transparency and control. And so part of being a big supporter of Prebid has to do with this idea of transparency. And so from the adoption of AI, I don’t want to be in a situation where lack of transparency is something that hinders publishers development.”
David Rowley, VP, Revenue Technology, News Corp.:
“I would definitely say I am more glass half full. I see AI as a huge opportunity for publishers. (…) What AI can do on the creative front has massive potential [as does] the right ad at the right time to the right person – it might be more achievable than ever. Agentic AI – what it can do for the advertising workflow I think is a huge opportunity that we’re just starting to lean into.
I’m very pessimistic about what the LLMs think that they can do and what they are getting away with —and so intellectual rights and theft— that’s obviously not a good thing. Declining page views —that’s also a sucky thing.
So there’s a lot of things that we have to do in order to re-adapt ourselves to the changing business model.”
Walter Knapp, CEO, Sovrn:
“I get excited about what AI can enable people to do.
I watched commercial folks on our team that can imagine something [using AI]. (…) And what we do is we encourage people to ‘vibe code,’ hack things, and then they build prototypes that are like, ‘Look, how badass this thing is.’ It is amazing what it enables anyone to do as long as you put some time into it. I’m super excited about that.
What I get worried about is you take supply that was mostly fungible, and then you get supply that is almost entirely fungible. When I hear some of the sessions today saying what you can accomplish with AI – I’m not all-in. I do worry about what does that mean when we get rid of our own shared experiences… when content becomes a commodity? I do get worried about that, and I think that is your path to 100% fungibility in supply.”
Garrett McGrath, SVP of Product at Magnite and Chairman of Prebid[dot]org:
“From a product management point of view at an SSP, we’re doing much the same thing. We’re kind of AI-ifying the entire engineering product org. People are vibe coding or whatever you want to call it. Lots of people are using Cursor, Codex or Claude. And things are going much, much faster. (…) There is the opportunity for not only ‘right ad at the right time for the right person’ but ‘right person in that particular mood, on that particular day, in that particular pair of shoes’ – this is eminently possible.
On the flip side, AI eats all the content, the LLMs don’t play nice —which they already kind of aren’t— and all the things that have been said [on this panel]: page views go down, monetization goes down, publishers die. It’s a double-edged sword…”
BRANDS
Unilever making the AI case (study)
On Monday, Unilever marketer Morgan Vawter linked out to four AI marketing case studies at her company on LinkedIn.
But Ms. Vawter took an unexpected approach:
“This isn’t a story about AI.
It’s a story about marketers’ superpowers amplified:
- Super listening: recognizing, understanding and prioritizing signals to spot meaningful moments and build stories that resonate.
- Super speed: moving at the pace of culture.
- Super multiply: adapting content that embodies brand strategy, stories and powerful creative into many cuts, hooks, lengths, languages and remixes that flex across communities and moments…”
Read more from Ms. Vawter on LinkedIn. (October 14)
More: “How AI is helping drive Desire at Scale across Unilever” (September 30) – Unilever
AGENCIES
Publicis embracing AI moment
Earnings season is here and Publicis reported better than expected earnings yesterday. Also, the agency holding company’s CEO pushed back on the notion that AI would destroy the agency model.
According to The Wall Street Journal:
“Publicis, which has lost about one fifth of its market value this year, sought to soothe those worries by highlighting the contribution of its AI product and services to revenue last quarter and signaling that its growth stretch was likely to continue next year.
‘We are demonstrating that artificial intelligence at Publicis is not a future promise, it is a reality today that is driving our growth,’ Publicis Chairman and Chief Executive Arthur Sadoun said. ‘Not only did we not experience any material cuts in marketing spend, but we also saw an acceleration in demand for our AI-led products and services.’”
Read more in The WSJ. (October 14 – subscription)
More:
- Publicis Groupe : Third Quarter 2025 Revenue (October 14) – press release
- Publicis rules out bid for Dentsu’s international unit after beating forecasts (October 14) – Financial Times (subscription)
TECH
The Trade Desk OpenAds plan revealed
- The Trade Desk Execs Share New Details About How Sell-Side Solution OpenAds Will Work (October 14) – Adweek
- “The Strategy of OpenAds” (October 13) – Mike Sullivan, co-founder of sincera, The Trade Desk on LinkedIn
- Inside PubDesk, The Trade Desk’s New Dashboard That Shows What Buyers Actually Care About (October 14) – AdExchanger
From tipsheet: If The Trade Desk’s AI-enabled Kokai ad platform is going to compete with the AI-enabled platforms of the walled gardens – all of whom enjoy transparency into their owned and operated properties’ supply – TTD needs to simulate something similar with the properties of the open web. Better data in means better results out.
But, there remains the challenge of Amazon DSP which is also active across the open web. In deals with the buy side, can Amazon DSP just undercut The Trade Desk on price and play the long game?
AGENCIES
WPP, Google Cloud expand partnership
“WPP and Google today announced a five-year expansion of their partnership, dedicated to advancing cloud and AI technology and cultivating the essential skills to transform marketing as we know it. The collaboration aims to revolutionise how brands approach integrated creative, production, media, experience, and commerce, enabling real-time personalisation for millions of customers simultaneously, and moving beyond traditional efficiency initiatives to unlock growth…”
Read: WPP and Google Forge Groundbreaking Partnership to Redefine Marketing With AI (October 14) – press release
PEOPLE MOVES
You’re Hired
Former Tapad CRO Chris Feo joins Unity as SVP of Sales & Partnerships, Programmatic (October 14) – Christopher Feo on LinkedIn
MORE
- Ads always win: why advertising on AI agents is a sure bet (October 14) – Aaron Goldman, CMO, Mediaocean on LinkedIn
- Spotify Studios and The Ringer Video Podcasts Are Coming to Netflix (October 14) – Spotify
- Epiminds Raises $6.6 Million For AI Marketing Agents (October 14) – Forbes
- DirecTV screensavers will show AI-generated ads with your face in 2026 (October 14) – Ars Technica
- Why Amazon will not devour advertising – Jason Fairchild, CEO, tvScientific on his blog