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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Peter Charness
Retail Strategy - UST Global
Carol Spieckerman
President, Spieckerman Retail
Sandeep Dang
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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?
Poll
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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 externally position itself so bluntly 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. Why is that controversial? 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 has it building institutional knowledge that’s hard to replicate. It’s less about hired tech guns parachuting in these days and more about marinating leaders in Walmart’s existing tech platform. Walmart is a technology company that sells products (and services, and…), not a traditional 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) Until that changes, it’s “basically” a peddler shopkeeper.
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%.
Thank you.
I’m working on a submission to the “suggested topic” box: Does clickbait make good sushi?
I shall look forward to answering that next week…
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.
Walmart has integrated technology in its supply chain and for operational upside, but with 80% of its retail revenue still coming from in-store shopping, I’d say it’s an early stretch to call them a tech company.
God forbid. And if Walmart executives are thinking they are a tech company, their future is severely limited. There is usually value looking at a company through many different lenses with one of those being technology. But its is only one of very many ways to consider Walmart. Yet it remains today, as it always has, a company helping people purchase the goods they need to live their lives. Anyone choosing to forget that means physical goods bought by physical people ensures Walmart’s eventual failure.
Calling Walmart a tech company misframes its strategic position. This is an intermediating change in which core assets remain valuable while activities adapt for agent-mediated commerce. The real risk isn’t pivoting too fast but failing ambidexterity: exploiting current retail (80% revenue in-store) while building agent-accessible infrastructure. Walmart must simultaneously serve human shoppers and position 4,600+ stores as fulfillment nodes; unglamorous operational work that matters more than identity debates.
Physical proximity becomes a competitive advantage when rational agents optimize on speed and value. Amazon’s superstore strategy validates this. Mitigation requires dual-purpose execution: optimize stores for browsing and fulfillment, adapt pricing for algorithmic transparency, and accelerate APIs. The Nasdaq move signals sensing capability. Operational transformation determines whether Walmart seizes the agent-era before Amazon closes the infrastructure gap.
Walmart is a retailer. It uses technically to innovate, scale, and strengthen its position.
C’mon. Can’t we just take a deep breath and call Walmart the smartest, most evolved retailer around these days? Walmart has been brilliant about integrating the channels and evolving to meet ever growing customer expectations. They have listened and tested and learned and invested into technology and digital tools to accomplish that. That does not make them a tech company. That makes them a very astute student of the market dynamics and customer expectations. And by the way, they’ve also evolved their product content and marketing…big time. That’s not tech. That’s retail. And if they hadn’t evolved their product offerings and marketing, all the tech on the planet wouldn’t have them enjoying the success they enjoy today. Walmart has been brilliantly led and managed over the course of the past decade…across the broad spectrum of moving parts it takes to make a retailer of its size and scale work. That’s great retailing. It’s not tech. It’s tech enabled.
Anybody else remember when WeWork tried to sell itself as a tech company? C’mon.
As a former 18-year associate in the company, I don’t think it’s accurate to describe Walmart as “basically” a tech company — and frankly, Walmart itself would disagree with that framing. The company’s updated mission makes it clear that it sees itself as a people-led, tech-powered omnichannel retailer first and foremost. Technology is an enabler, not the end state. The strategic priorities reinforce that identity: running great stores and clubs, strengthening eCommerce and marketplace capabilities, scaling adjacencies such as advertising and fulfillment, and automating operations are all designed to enhance retail execution—not replace it. Walmart’s success historically has come from operational discipline, assortment clarity, and everyday value, and those remain at the core of its strategy even as technology becomes more embedded in how the business operates.
That said, there are risks if the narrative shifts too far toward a “tech company” identity. Retail is ultimately about customers, associates, and execution on the selling floor — and over-rotating toward tech could create perception challenges, both internally and externally, if stakeholders come to believe the fundamentals matter less. Walmart mitigates this by anchoring technology investments to clear retail outcomes: improving in-stock performance, enhancing fulfillment speed, strengthening customer experience scores, and creating growth paths for associates through training and automation rather than displacement. The emphasis on wages, education, remodels, and associate opportunity signals that the company understands that technology must support—not supplant— the company’s people-led culture.
In my view, Walmart’s approach represents a balanced evolution rather than a pivot away from its legacy focus. Becoming more data-driven, automated, and platform-oriented is simply the modern expression of its long-standing commitment to efficiency and value. The opportunity — and the challenge — is maintaining that equilibrium: leveraging technology to scale new businesses and improve customer outcomes while staying grounded in the fundamentals that made Walmart successful in the first place. Done right, Walmart doesn’t become a tech company — it becomes a better retailer because of technology.
“Walmart really wants to see itself as a technology-driven company that happens to sell groceries and stocks, and not the other way around,” said Tomas Jandik, a corporate finance professor at the University of Arkansas Sam M. Walton College of Business.
If so, Walmart has lost its way. As most of my colleagues noted, Walmart’s success lies in being the world’s best retailer, not in competing with today’s tech giants.
Walmart does not think that. Not even close. Walmart knows exactly what it is and what its mission is. Its very firm grasp on reality is one of the things that makes Walmart successful. Sam would be spinning in is grave if some of the nonsense being postulated was true!
While it’s true that Walmart has heavily invested in technology, calling it basically a tech company stretches the point. Retailers like Walmart have seen online sales grow rapidly in recent years, and digital tools, AI, and automation are now core to competing in retail. However, the vast majority of Walmart’s revenue—around 80 %—still comes from physical stores, and its DNA remains rooted in store-based retailing. Technology enhances how Walmart operates, but it doesn’t replace what the company is: a retailer. Amazon, by contrast, was built as a tech-first platform and only later expanded into physical stores.
Walmart is a retailer. Technology is a means to an end.
There’s no risk in “keeping up with the times,” and that is what Walmart is doing. Even small retailers have an online presence. And Walmart does more than just keep up. They are experimenting and investing in new technologies that drive more sales and a better customer experience.
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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 externally position itself so bluntly 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. Why is that controversial? 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 has it building institutional knowledge that’s hard to replicate. It’s less about hired tech guns parachuting in these days and more about marinating leaders in Walmart’s existing tech platform. Walmart is a technology company that sells products (and services, and…), not a traditional 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) Until that changes, it’s “basically” a
peddlershopkeeper.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%.
Thank you.
I’m working on a submission to the “suggested topic” box: Does clickbait make good sushi?
I shall look forward to answering that next week…
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.
Walmart has integrated technology in its supply chain and for operational upside, but with 80% of its retail revenue still coming from in-store shopping, I’d say it’s an early stretch to call them a tech company.
God forbid. And if Walmart executives are thinking they are a tech company, their future is severely limited. There is usually value looking at a company through many different lenses with one of those being technology. But its is only one of very many ways to consider Walmart. Yet it remains today, as it always has, a company helping people purchase the goods they need to live their lives. Anyone choosing to forget that means physical goods bought by physical people ensures Walmart’s eventual failure.
Calling Walmart a tech company misframes its strategic position. This is an intermediating change in which core assets remain valuable while activities adapt for agent-mediated commerce. The real risk isn’t pivoting too fast but failing ambidexterity: exploiting current retail (80% revenue in-store) while building agent-accessible infrastructure. Walmart must simultaneously serve human shoppers and position 4,600+ stores as fulfillment nodes; unglamorous operational work that matters more than identity debates.
Physical proximity becomes a competitive advantage when rational agents optimize on speed and value. Amazon’s superstore strategy validates this. Mitigation requires dual-purpose execution: optimize stores for browsing and fulfillment, adapt pricing for algorithmic transparency, and accelerate APIs. The Nasdaq move signals sensing capability. Operational transformation determines whether Walmart seizes the agent-era before Amazon closes the infrastructure gap.
Walmart is a retailer. It uses technically to innovate, scale, and strengthen its position.
C’mon. Can’t we just take a deep breath and call Walmart the smartest, most evolved retailer around these days? Walmart has been brilliant about integrating the channels and evolving to meet ever growing customer expectations. They have listened and tested and learned and invested into technology and digital tools to accomplish that. That does not make them a tech company. That makes them a very astute student of the market dynamics and customer expectations. And by the way, they’ve also evolved their product content and marketing…big time. That’s not tech. That’s retail. And if they hadn’t evolved their product offerings and marketing, all the tech on the planet wouldn’t have them enjoying the success they enjoy today. Walmart has been brilliantly led and managed over the course of the past decade…across the broad spectrum of moving parts it takes to make a retailer of its size and scale work. That’s great retailing. It’s not tech. It’s tech enabled.
Anybody else remember when WeWork tried to sell itself as a tech company? C’mon.
As a former 18-year associate in the company, I don’t think it’s accurate to describe Walmart as “basically” a tech company — and frankly, Walmart itself would disagree with that framing. The company’s updated mission makes it clear that it sees itself as a people-led, tech-powered omnichannel retailer first and foremost. Technology is an enabler, not the end state. The strategic priorities reinforce that identity: running great stores and clubs, strengthening eCommerce and marketplace capabilities, scaling adjacencies such as advertising and fulfillment, and automating operations are all designed to enhance retail execution—not replace it. Walmart’s success historically has come from operational discipline, assortment clarity, and everyday value, and those remain at the core of its strategy even as technology becomes more embedded in how the business operates.
That said, there are risks if the narrative shifts too far toward a “tech company” identity. Retail is ultimately about customers, associates, and execution on the selling floor — and over-rotating toward tech could create perception challenges, both internally and externally, if stakeholders come to believe the fundamentals matter less. Walmart mitigates this by anchoring technology investments to clear retail outcomes: improving in-stock performance, enhancing fulfillment speed, strengthening customer experience scores, and creating growth paths for associates through training and automation rather than displacement. The emphasis on wages, education, remodels, and associate opportunity signals that the company understands that technology must support—not supplant— the company’s people-led culture.
In my view, Walmart’s approach represents a balanced evolution rather than a pivot away from its legacy focus. Becoming more data-driven, automated, and platform-oriented is simply the modern expression of its long-standing commitment to efficiency and value. The opportunity — and the challenge — is maintaining that equilibrium: leveraging technology to scale new businesses and improve customer outcomes while staying grounded in the fundamentals that made Walmart successful in the first place. Done right, Walmart doesn’t become a tech company — it becomes a better retailer because of technology.
“Walmart really wants to see itself as a technology-driven company that happens to sell groceries and stocks, and not the other way around,” said Tomas Jandik, a corporate finance professor at the University of Arkansas Sam M. Walton College of Business.
If so, Walmart has lost its way. As most of my colleagues noted, Walmart’s success lies in being the world’s best retailer, not in competing with today’s tech giants.
Walmart does not think that. Not even close. Walmart knows exactly what it is and what its mission is. Its very firm grasp on reality is one of the things that makes Walmart successful. Sam would be spinning in is grave if some of the nonsense being postulated was true!
While it’s true that Walmart has heavily invested in technology, calling it basically a tech company stretches the point. Retailers like Walmart have seen online sales grow rapidly in recent years, and digital tools, AI, and automation are now core to competing in retail. However, the vast majority of Walmart’s revenue—around 80 %—still comes from physical stores, and its DNA remains rooted in store-based retailing. Technology enhances how Walmart operates, but it doesn’t replace what the company is: a retailer. Amazon, by contrast, was built as a tech-first platform and only later expanded into physical stores.
Walmart is a retailer. Technology is a means to an end.
There’s no risk in “keeping up with the times,” and that is what Walmart is doing. Even small retailers have an online presence. And Walmart does more than just keep up. They are experimenting and investing in new technologies that drive more sales and a better customer experience.