The retail landscape just experienced a seismic shift. On October 14, 2025, Walmart announced a partnership with OpenAI to enable shopping directly through ChatGPT, giving 700 million weekly ChatGPT users instant access to Walmart's entire product catalog without ever visiting Walmart.com. Combined with Walmart's proprietary AI assistant Sparky, which CEO Doug McMillon projects will become "the primary vehicle for discovery, shopping and for managing everything from reorders to returns", the message is clear: conversational AI is now the storefront. For Walmart vendors, this raises an existential question: When algorithms, not search bars, decide what gets recommended, how do you ensure your products are even visible?
