February 5, 2026
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Is it Fair To Describe Walmart as ‘Basically’ a Tech Company?
In a concise profile of Walmart’s recent re-alignment in leadership and operational goals, Modern Retail’s Mitchell Parton made the case with a splashy headline proclaiming that Walmart had become “basically a tech company.”
Parton outlined the foundations of his argument: Walmart and Amazon were neck-and-neck in terms of revenue in the third quarter ending last October (with the blue-and-yellow brand dragging down $179.5 billion in revenue versus Amazon’s $180.2), and Walmart had seen it’s global e-commerce business soar by 27% YoY. It’s Walmart Connect ad business improved by a staggering 33%, and its stock rose by 28% over the course of 2025. And as last year, Walmart joined the Nasdaq exchange, further cementing its tech-centric intentions.
And a lot of that tech integration is hinged around automation and AI solutions.
“Walmart is setting a new standard for omnichannel retail by integrating automation and AI to build smarter, faster and more connected experiences for customers, while enabling our associates to deliver even greater value at scale,” Walmart CFO John David Rainey said in November of last year, as cited by Parton.
Analysts Weigh in On Walmart’s New Positioning
In that shift to the Nasdaq, Walmart hit the $1 trillion valuation mark, more specifically registering a valuation of $1.02 trillion. Tomas Jandik, a corporate finance professor at the University of Arkansas Sam M. Walton College of Business, was quoted in the Modern Retail reportage on the subject of Walmart’s strategic pivot.
“Walmart really wants to see itself as a technology-driven company that happens to sell groceries and stocks, and not the other way around,” Jandik said.
“People come for groceries, people buy socks, people buy TVs, everything in between, but what is really important is where the money that they are making is going and where the growth is coming from,” he added.
Solidifying this sentiment are several other facts: Walmart is engaging in partnerships with both OpenAI (ChatGPT) and Google (Gemini), and has also elevated execs who have been instrumental players in moving the company into a tech-forward positioning, including now-CEO John Furner, chief growth officer Seth Daillaire, and Walmart U.S. president and CEO David Guggina. Parton provided remarks from Barry Thomas, senior retail thought leader for Kantar, on the subject.
“[With] what they’re learning with these new partnerships, how they’re leaning into innovation, how commerce is being reinvented, they’re on the forefront of agentic commerce. They just behave and act like a tech company,” Thomas said.
Besides the above — and the nature of brands hewing even closer to Walmart due both its scale and its constantly evolving tech stack — it appears Walmart is leaving smaller retailers struggling in its wake as it also leaves its own legacy behind.
“The Walmart of the last 40 years was a value, discount-driven retailer that had its place on the New York Stock Exchange. … It was getting its valuation as a very old, established company with low growth. Walmart wants to signal that they are [a major investor] in new technologies,” Jandik concluded.
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Nicholas Morine
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Discussion Questions
In your opinion, is it fair to describe Walmart as ‘basically’ a tech company at this juncture? Why or why not?
What risks are posed by Walmart pivoting away from its legacy focus, and into a tech-centric one, so quickly? How can Walmart mitigate these risks?
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Primarily, Walmart is not a technology company. It is a retailer. Admittedly it’s a retailer that is highly tech literate and exceptional in deploying solutions but it’s a retailer, nonetheless. Now, Walmart may not position itself as such because it knows pushing the technology angle attracts a higher valuation from investors – but that says more about Walmart’s savvy and some investors’ naivete than anything else. Of course, none of this is to deny that Walmart isn’t adding more tech-focused elements to its business, like retail media, but all of these are anchored by retail. If retail fails, Walmart fails.
Walmart leverages technology, and logistics, and supply chain excellence as part of their ability to sell products to their customers. I’d call them a damn smart Retailer.
No “basically” to it, Walmart is a tech company that operates in the retail space. Its scoot over to Nasdaq wasn’t symbolic, it’s a reflection of Walmart’s true identity. As part of that evolution, Walmart’s internal promotion culture shift is building institutional knowledge that’s hard to replicate. It’s less about hired guns parachuting in these days and more about marinating leaders in Walmart’s tech transformation. Walmart is now a technology company that happens to sell stuff, not a retailer dabbling in tech.
Fair? How ’bout we try “silly”? Oh, sure. WalMart makes use of tech – along with just about every other company in the world – and it’s useful to note that historically it became what is is by being a savvy user; but the bulk of its revenue still comes from selling things to people. (Hint: that’s why we talk about it on RetailWire) Unitl that changes, it’s “basically” a peddler.
Silly is the word for it. At least with Amazon, a huge slice of revenue (c58%) comes from non-retail activities, most of it tech related in some way or another. Walmart’s equivalent number is well under 5%.
It’s a supply chain specialist retailer, that is now using technology to do better
Partnerships (Shopify, TikTok, OpenAI) and acquisitions (Vizio, even Jet.com) strengthened Walmart’s competitive positioning with tech-driven infrastructure, enhancing efficiency and the customer experience. Recent AI, retail media and logistics investments will continue to pay off over the long term.
“Basically a tech company” might be a stretch, but technology clearly underpins how Walmart wins. The real advantage is how its systems work together across the business, allowing it to move fast, learn, and scale what works.
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Primarily, Walmart is not a technology company. It is a retailer. Admittedly it’s a retailer that is highly tech literate and exceptional in deploying solutions but it’s a retailer, nonetheless. Now, Walmart may not position itself as such because it knows pushing the technology angle attracts a higher valuation from investors – but that says more about Walmart’s savvy and some investors’ naivete than anything else. Of course, none of this is to deny that Walmart isn’t adding more tech-focused elements to its business, like retail media, but all of these are anchored by retail. If retail fails, Walmart fails.
Walmart leverages technology, and logistics, and supply chain excellence as part of their ability to sell products to their customers. I’d call them a damn smart Retailer.
No “basically” to it, Walmart is a tech company that operates in the retail space. Its scoot over to Nasdaq wasn’t symbolic, it’s a reflection of Walmart’s true identity. As part of that evolution, Walmart’s internal promotion culture shift is building institutional knowledge that’s hard to replicate. It’s less about hired guns parachuting in these days and more about marinating leaders in Walmart’s tech transformation. Walmart is now a technology company that happens to sell stuff, not a retailer dabbling in tech.
Fair? How ’bout we try “silly”? Oh, sure. WalMart makes use of tech – along with just about every other company in the world – and it’s useful to note that historically it became what is is by being a savvy user; but the bulk of its revenue still comes from selling things to people. (Hint: that’s why we talk about it on RetailWire) Unitl that changes, it’s “basically” a peddler.
Silly is the word for it. At least with Amazon, a huge slice of revenue (c58%) comes from non-retail activities, most of it tech related in some way or another. Walmart’s equivalent number is well under 5%.
It’s a supply chain specialist retailer, that is now using technology to do better
Partnerships (Shopify, TikTok, OpenAI) and acquisitions (Vizio, even Jet.com) strengthened Walmart’s competitive positioning with tech-driven infrastructure, enhancing efficiency and the customer experience. Recent AI, retail media and logistics investments will continue to pay off over the long term.
“Basically a tech company” might be a stretch, but technology clearly underpins how Walmart wins. The real advantage is how its systems work together across the business, allowing it to move fast, learn, and scale what works.