July 27, 2025
5 min read
Marianne Wilson
Walmart hires Instacart’s Daniel Danker to lead AI efforts and unveils AI ‘super agents’ to enhance shopping and operations.
Walmart is accelerating its artificial intelligence adoption with a strategic hire and a new AI framework designed to enhance the shopping experience and streamline operations.
Daniel Danker, former chief product officer at Instacart, is leaving the company after four and a half years to join Walmart as executive vice president of AI acceleration, product, and design. Danker announced the move on LinkedIn, praising Walmart for its bold and effective embrace of change and technology.
Source: Originally published at Chain Store Age on July 25, 2025.
“It’s a company that has transformed commerce multiple times by staying relentlessly focused on customers, members and associates,” Danker said. “It’s people-led and tech-powered, grounded in local impact while operating at incredible scale. We’re on the eve of another transformation as AI enables us to reinvent commerce and serve customers and communities in entirely new ways.”Danker will report directly to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, according to The Wall Street Journal. Walmart is also rolling out a new AI framework consisting of four “super agents” powered by agentic AI. These super agents will serve as access points for customers, employees, and partners, incorporating multiple AI agents—some already in use, such as an agent that helps employees navigate benefits. Suresh Kumar, Walmart’s global chief technology officer and chief development officer, shared in a LinkedIn post that the company is combining AI with breakthrough technologies like drones and real-time digital twins of its facilities to predict and prevent issues before they happen.
“With geospatial data and insights from Flipkart, we plan to offer dynamic delivery windows to 95% of U.S. households by the end of this year,” Kumar said.These initiatives mark a significant step in Walmart’s ongoing AI transformation aimed at reinventing commerce and improving service to customers and communities.
Source: Originally published at Chain Store Age on July 25, 2025.