As shoppers shift habits faster than you can say “same-day delivery” and tech upends every aisle, the winners aren’t just reacting but are increasingly predicting what customers want before they even know it themselves.
Both giants are doing just that. Amazon is doubling down on cashierless stores, innovative deliveries and voice-enabled shopping through Alexa. Walmart, not to be outdone, is rolling out artificial intelligence (AI)-powered inventory systems, revamping stores into fulfillment hubs and partnering with startups to keep its tech game tight.
But the real wild card? Consumer behavior. Shoppers in 2025 have come to expect everything: speed, convenience, value and personalization. Miss on any one of those, and your rival scoops the sale, especially as macro pressures squeeze the margins. That’s why both Amazon and Walmart are pouring billions into infrastructure and innovation, reshaping supply chains and reimagining the very concept of “store.”
Their most recent efforts fall into three overarching themes: AI-driven innovation and infrastructure expansion, evolving consumer engagement strategies and bold strategic market expansions.
Read more: How Amazon and Walmart Are Rewiring Retail’s Future With Robotics
AI-Driven Innovation and Infrastructure Expansion
Amazon and Walmart are charting ambitious courses into the future, leveraging AI to redefine shopping experiences, logistics and customer engagement.
Walmart is embracing “agentic AI,” a paradigm where autonomous digital agents perform tasks on behalf of users. According to Walmart U.S. Chief Technology Officer Hari Vasudev, the company is developing personal shopping agents capable of autonomously navigating shopping journeys, from product discovery to purchase completion.
These agents, powered by Walmart’s proprietary large language models, aim to deliver hyper-personalized experiences, integrating with the retailer’s existing digital infrastructure.
Amazon, for its part, is enhancing its warehouse and logistics network with robots that understand and respond to natural language commands. This is a bold step toward more adaptive automation and human-robot collaboration, promising increased efficiency and decreased operational friction.
And Amazon’s recent announcement of a $10 billion investment in North Carolina underscores the scale of ambition. The development, designed to bolster Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) AI and cloud infrastructure, is expected to generate at least 500 high-skilled jobs and solidify the region as a burgeoning AI hub.
Evolving Consumer Engagement Strategies
While AI investments are transforming operations behind the scenes, the consumer-facing innovations are equally significant. Both Amazon and Walmart are responding to a noticeable shift in consumer behavior, marked by a slowdown in discretionary spending and a reallocation of household budgets toward essentials like housing, healthcare and services.
To address these dynamics, Walmart is enhancing its digital tools to support customers utilizing Medicare Advantage benefits. New features in the Walmart app and website allow users to identify eligible over-the-counter, food and wellness products, track benefit balances, and streamline the shopping process.
Meanwhile, Amazon is doubling down on consumer loyalty by enhancing its Prime offering while acknowledging the competitive relevance of Walmart+. Interestingly, a growing number of consumers now maintain memberships with both services. Walmart continues to lead in grocery and in-person convenience, while Amazon dominates in online discretionary retail and entertainment.
Read more: Amazon and Walmart Turn Groceries, Health and Data Into Distinct Empires
Strategic Market Expansion and Business Diversification
Beyond consumer experiences and operational efficiencies, both companies are pushing aggressively into new markets and verticals.
Amazon recently unveiled its ZeroOne initiative, a team dedicated to inventing entirely new product categories. This team isn’t merely iterating on existing offerings; it’s exploring white-space opportunities with the potential to redefine consumer behavior altogether. The initiative exemplifies Amazon’s long-standing ethos of market creation rather than competition.
On the other side of the globe, Walmart’s Flipkart subsidiary secured approval from India’s central bank to operate as a non-bank finance company (NBFC). This license enables Flipkart to lend directly to consumers and sellers, offering installment plans, credit lines and other financial services. It’s a bold move that positions Walmart not just as a retailer in India, but as a FinTech powerhouse.
Amazon also recently inked a licensing agreement with The New York Times to access its editorial content for training large language models and enhancing AI tools across customer-facing platforms.
These moves illustrate a shift from AI as an internal enabler to AI as a strategic asset — central to value creation, market expansion and even competitive insulation.
