One of America’s biggest retailers, Walmart, is currently busy implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help the company determine its prices. This popular retailer will use a technology-related tool, specifically an AI tool that predicts product prices. This technology will be provided by Helios, and it will forecast the price and availability of agricultural commodities.
Background into Walmart’s decision to use AI
Since we are currently living in a world that is driven by AI, it was just a matter of time that retailers start to implement it. Walmart is planning on using software that calculates climate risk and provides price predictions for various products. With this, the retailer plans on improving its evaluation of medium and long-term climate risks for the global agricultural supply chain.
In addition, this will be done with the software provided by Helios AI, which predicts the price and availability of agricultural commodities by using climate risk and artificial intelligence. As this popular retailer plans to process with its efforts to boost and support sustainable sourcing, the technology partnership with Helios AI occurred.
Walmart and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The Walmart and Helios AI partnership is occurring at the right time, to help strengthen the retailer’s food supply chain. Since Walmart is currently operating in over 4 600 locations in the United States and the fact that it handles thousands of produce SKU’s daily, means that this partnership is essential. According to the USDA, 30% of food loss were identified – this occurred during the production of agriculture and harvesting. It identified unpredicted weather as the key driver and reason for food loss.
Moreover, Helios has plans to provide access to historical pricing and price estimates for products like fruits and vegetables. The plan is for this to take place at the upcoming addition of international, national, and regional average and ranges. This will allow consumers to interact with the various prices, whether it is by the original region or a shipping point. It will be an opportunity for prices to be analysed by its variety, grade and organic status.
The New Partnership
The beginning of this new partnership started when Helios won Walmart’s 11th Open Call competition for entrepreneurs. What made this win more special is the fact that this was Walmart’s first Open Call winner in the software category. The pitch event, where companies met with the retailer’s merchants, occurred at Walmart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, during September 2024. This is where Walmart learnt more about what Helios stands for and the how the company can add to what Walmart currently has. The main aim is to make the retailer better or rather improve what it currently has.
Additionally, with this new partnership, Helios identified new suite features that can be used to assess the climate risk, as well as an opportunity to provide weather projections, one year in advance. As further stated by the USDA, this tool can also change the timeframe of charts and key performance indicators (KPI), instead of focusing on pre-defined timeframes. During spring of 2024, Walmart made an announcement about a possible pilot that will take place which will focus on agriculture technology. It will specifically provide real-time information on the crops and possibilities of improvement that can occur around sourcing decisions and produce.
Moreover, Agritask, which is a crop supply intelligence company, is also one of the new partners of big retailer Walmart. This company focus on using remote sensing and data analytical tools in several regions in the Unites States and Mexico. The main aim of this is to provide hyperlocal information on specific products, for examples fruit like, blackberry and cherry, which a generally grown by certain suppliers.