Walmart Says AI Training Is Building Confidence Among Its 2.1 Million Associates

As companies pour more money into artificial intelligence, many are trying to learn how their own employees feel about the technology. Walmart, the largest private employer in the world, put that question to its 2.1 million associates for the first time in June.

The retailer received more than 1.7 million survey responses. According to the company, the results show that workers come to AI with different levels of familiarity and comfort, but that training and hands-on experience make a clear difference.

Maren Waggoner, Walmart's Chief People Officer for Associate Experience and Digital, shared the findings with CNBC's Leslie Picker at the 2026 CNBC Workforce Executive Council Summit in New York City. She said 77% of office-based associates feel fairly confident using AI tools. Among U.S. frontline associates, 84% said they are confident using digital tools, which Waggoner described as a reflection of the AI-powered tools many of them now use in their jobs.

"We've given them certificates, we've given them training programs and tools, and so they're using it in their day-to-day," Waggoner said.

Over the past 13 months, Walmart has teamed up with both Google and OpenAI on learning and AI certification programs that associates can take at no cost. Waggoner said associates who completed the OpenAI training reported a 27% gain in confidence when using AI.

Those results run against broader national sentiment. An August 2026 Pew Research Center poll found that about 52% of U.S. adults are more concerned than excited about AI. Walmart data, by contrast, showed its associates reporting greater comfort and excitement. "Providing the tools, providing the training; they feel more confident," Waggoner said.

She described AI as perhaps the biggest technological shift in Walmart's 64-year history, though she said the company's approach to change has stayed consistent. Walmart's mission statement calls for a "people-led, tech-powered omni-channel retailer that is ultimately dedicated to helping save money," she said, and the people-led, tech-powered idea "has been around for a while."

Fear of job loss remains common among workers across the economy. Waggoner said Walmart is using AI to automate some processes in fulfillment centers, but the goal is to "reduce some of that friction and use robotics to help, and then really focus the work on human judgement." At the company's innovation lab in Dallas, Texas, she said, automation that cut physical tasks once done by people has created more quality assurance roles rather than widespread job losses.

In stores, Waggoner said Walmart has found that customers "actually like talking to a human at checkout," which frees associates to apply AI to customer problems. She pointed to a store manager in Mexico, whom she met earlier this year, who built his own AI agent to analyze reports and boost fresh produce sales. "He's using the tool, but he's still running the store," she said, adding that his fresh sales are "through the roof."