Walmart Is Using AI to Negotiate the Best Price With Some Vendors
With chatbots instead of humans doing the haggling over cost and purchase terms, the retail giant is wringing more savings from contracts.
As ChatGPT dazzles the general public with fanciful uses of artificial intelligence, such as writing Hollywood scripts or opining on fantasy baseball and art theory, Walmart Inc. is leaning on AI for a more pragmatic purpose: bargaining with suppliers.
The retail giant uses a chatbot developed by Mountain View, California-based Pactum AI Inc., whose software helps large companies automate vendor negotiations. Walmart tells the software its budgets and needs. Then the AI, rather than a buying team, communicates with human sellers to close each deal.