Walmart’s CEO has issued a stark warning about the impact of artificial intelligence, predicting that it will revolutionize every job within the company’s vast workforce of 2.1 million employees.

Doug McMillon, the head of America’s largest private employer, anticipates a sweeping transformation affecting all levels of the organization, including the 1.6 million workers based in the United States.

During a Harvard Business Review conference on Monday, McMillon revealed that Walmart plans to proactively embrace AI, foreseeing significant changes for roles ranging from cashiers and warehouse staff to store managers and executives, as automation permeates every aspect of operations.

“Every job we have is going to undergo some form of change,” McMillon remarked. “This could involve tasks as simple as retrieving shopping carts from the parking lot or as complex as the tasks performed by our technologists and leaders.”

McMillon’s candid comments underscore a growing acknowledgment within corporate America that the AI revolution is poised to transform not only office jobs but also frontline retail and logistics positions nationwide.

This warning coincides with a swift corporate pivot towards AI technology, coming on the heels of Walmart’s recent partnership with Sam Altman’s OpenAI. This collaboration allows customers to shop and make purchases using 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.

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

McMillon believes 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

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.

In September, Walmart partnered with OpenAI to develop a ‘customized’ training program centered around artificial intelligence

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. 

Walmart US president John Furner predicted that AI would help Walmart would create jobs over the next two years that do not exist today

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.