Walmart provides internal tools to generative AI developers
Walmart Inc. continues taking steps to establish itself as a major developer of artificial intelligence technology.
The discount giant recently unveiled a strategy to accelerate what it calls "adaptive retail," defined as "profoundly personal experiences that brings shopping to customers in exactly the ways they want and need" via AI, particularly generative AI.
[READ MORE: Walmart will personalize customer experience with generative AI]
To further support these efforts Walmart, which has also provided employees with the Walmart GenAI Playground, an early-stage internal tool where they can explore and learn about the technology, since June 2023, is enabling AI development within the company through a number of proprietary developer experience (DX) solutions:
DX AI Assistant
The DX AI Assistant is an internal platform of generative AI chatbot solutions that developers can use when they have Walmart-specific questions on what tools to use, what resources to provision and how to configure them. The answer is generated in a few seconds and on average, Walmart says DX AI saves developers five minutes per question.
DX Platform
The DX Platform acts as a unified access point for developer tools and to provision resources, consolidating content from different platforms. DX Platform also provides a single interface to deploy, triage and monitor software deployments.
Code Buddy
Code Buddy aids in development and helps developers create unit test cases and understand existing code, as well as troubleshoot pipeline failures. The tool offers recommendations, tutorials and explanations and can assist with technical documentation efforts.
ArchiText
This tool helps the creation of standardized visual unified modeling language (UML) diagrams from text inputs, using natural language processing to understand the prompt, information extraction and data structuring to process the data in the format to generate diagrams. According to Walmart, developer teams can create diagrams 69% faster using ArchiText, saving an average of 31 minutes per diagram.
Pipeline Visualizer
Pipeline Visualizer consolidates all continuous integration/continuous development (CI/CD) pipeline assets in one location, providing a centralized hub for developers to have access to necessary resources.
As a result, Walmart says developers can focus on resolving the issues, reducing time spent on pipeline fixes.
DX AI Builder
Walmart is building out DX AI Builder, a platform designed to enable developers to create AI Assistants to improve automation, optimize performance, and enhance the functionality of the DX AI Assistant Marketplace in days.
"Generative AI is poised to become a game-changer," said Andrew Budd, VP, developer productivity & generative AI, Walmart Global Tech, in a corporate blog post. "We envision integrating it into every stage of the software development lifecycle in the next three years, transforming processes from discovery to development and operations. This integration underscores Walmart's commitment to delivering value quickly and efficiently, paving the way for a new era of innovation and creativity in software development."
Based in Bentonville, Ark., Walmart Inc. operates more than 10,500 stores and numerous e-commerce websites in 19 countries.
