Walmart boss warns of AI shake-up that will impact 2.1 million jobs at America’s biggest employer

The CEO of Walmart has warned that artificial intelligence will reshape every single job across the retail giant’s 2.1million-strong workforce.

Doug McMillon says the transformation will redefine how America’s largest employer operates from top to bottom, affecting at least 1.6million US workers.

Speaking at a Harvard Business Review event Monday, McMillon said the company was going on ‘the offense’ with AI, predicting sweeping changes for cashiers, warehouse staff, store managers and executives alike as automation spreads through every corner of the business.

‘Every job we’ve got is going to change in some way – whether it’s getting the shopping carts off the parking lot, or the way our technologists work, or certainly the way leadership roles change,’ McMillon said.

The CEO’s blunt assessment marks one of corporate America’s clearest acknowledgments that the AI revolution will transform not just office jobs, but frontline retail and logistics roles across the country. 

The warning comes amid a rapid corporate shift toward the technology and just weeks after Walmart unveiled a new collaboration with Sam Altman’s OpenAI, allowing customers to shop and make purchases directly through ChatGPT.

McMillon’s comments suggest the advance of AI will upend millions of traditional jobs, even as the company insists it plans to remain one of the nation’s largest employers.

‘What we want to do is equip everybody to make the most of the new tools that are available, learn, adapt, add value, drive growth – and still be a really large employer years from now,’ he added.

The retailer, which operates more than 10,000 stores in 19 countries, has been steadily weaving AI into its operations for years, using predictive analytics to stock shelves, algorithms to manage delivery routes and new ChatGPT-powered shopping tools to guide online customers. 

The CEO said that far from cutting staff immediately, Walmart is expanding access to digital training through its Walmart Academies, the company’s global education program that logged 5.5million training hours in 2023.

‘We need to be the best in the world at application,’ McMillon said, noting that the company has created a new executive post dedicated to AI oversight, filled by Daniel Danker, executive vice president of AI acceleration, product and design.

Through the academies employees are now being encouraged to experiment with ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms. Walmart’s chief people officer, Donna Morris, has called it ‘a customized training program centered around AI’.

‘Through Walmart Academy, the largest private training program in the world with over 3.5 million participants, associates will have free access to a tailored version of this certification. This training is designed to help you at work and in your personal life in an increasingly digital world,’ Morris said in September. 

Monday’s remarks build on a series of increasingly candid admissions from Walmart executives this year about the scale of disruption coming to retail employment.

‘It’s very clear that AI is going to change literally every job. Maybe there’s a job in the world that AI won’t change, but I haven’t thought of it,’ McMillon said during an internal conference earlier this Fall.

Sitting beside OpenAI’s chief economist Ronnie Chatterji, McMillon warned that the most visible impacts would appear within 18 to 36 months – the same timeline Chatterji said could see ‘a lot more impact’ across the US job market.

Walmart US president John Furner echoed that message weeks later, telling a Utah business summit that the company expects to keep roughly the same number of employees for years to come even as its revenues grow.

‘When we look out two years, three years, five years, where I think we’ll be is: we’ll have roughly about the same number of people we have today and we’ll have a larger business,’ Furner said. 

‘I don’t think we see a path of being lower than what it is today. I think it’s just the work is gonna change.’ 

Walmart insists that AI will create new types of work even as it automates repetitive ones. 

Among the new roles emerging inside the company are ‘agent builders’ teams tasked with developing AI-powered assistants for internal operations, together with technicians who monitor and maintain automated systems. 

‘AI is just starting to ripple through the job market,’ said Chatterji at the Arkansas event. ‘I think 18 to 36 months, you’re going to see a lot more impact.’

Surveys suggest Americans remain deeply anxious about what this transformation will mean. 

An August Reuters/Ipsos poll found 71 percent of respondents worried that AI will put ‘too many people out of work permanently’.

A September CBS News/YouGov survey showed 46 percent expect AI to reduce jobs over the next decade, while just 23 percent believe it will create more.

Those fears have been fueled by sweeping layoffs at other corporate giants. Amazon cut 14,000 corporate jobs this Fall and Target slashed 1,800 positions, citing the efficiencies brought by automation.

Executives at Walmart insist the company’s transformation will not mirror those mass layoffs. 

Instead they say the real challenge will be keeping pace with how quickly new technology changes the definition of work itself. 

Fidji Simo, chief executive of applications at OpenAI, said the partnership with Walmart is designed to ‘help companies operate more efficiently, give anyone the power to turn their ideas into income, and create jobs that don’t even exist today’.

But even she cautioned that the shift will be disruptive and require ‘everyone to learn how to work in new ways’.

McMillon has framed the transition as an opportunity and a test of leadership for the world’s largest retailer.

‘What we want to do is equip everybody to make the most of the new tools, learn, adapt, add value, drive growth – and still be a really large employer years from now’ he said.