As corporate investment in AI continues to grow, companies of all sizes are trying to understand how employees feel about this technology in the workplace.
Wal-Mart is the world's largest private employer. In June, for the first time, the company posed this question to its 2.1 million employees, attempting to understand how such a highly diverse workforce experiences AI.
Based on over 1.7 million survey responses, Walmart found that although employees have varying levels of familiarity and acceptance with AI, training and usage experience are very important.
Walmart's Chief Human Resources Officer responsible for employee experience and digitalization, Maren Waggoner, stated at the 2026 CNBC Workforce Executive Council Summit held in New York City to journalist Leslie Picker that 77% of Walmart office employees expressed "quite a lot of confidence" in using the AI tool.
She said that as for Walmart's frontline employees in the United States, 84% of them expressed confidence in using digital tools, which reflects the use of AI driving tools by many people in their positions today.
Waggoner said, "We provided them with certificates, training programs, and tools, so they use these things in their daily work."
In the past 13 months, Walmart has collaborated with Google and OpenAI to launch learning programs and AI certification programs for its employees, all of which are free of charge. Waggoner states that employees who participated in the OpenAI training reported a 27% increase in their confidence when using AI.
This has helped Walmart to reverse to some extent some of the larger trends surrounding AI within the United States. According to a poll by the Pew Research Center in August 2026, approximately 52% of American adults expressed more concern than excitement about AI; however, Walmart's data shows that its employees exhibit a higher level of adaptability and enthusiasm.
Waggoner said, "Provide tools and provide training; then they will be more confident."
Although AI may represent the largest technological transformation in Walmart's 64-year history, Waggoner indicates that the way the company is driving its transformation has not changed.
She said, "We have a rather bold mission statement: to become a people-led, technology-driven omnichannel retailer, ultimately committed to helping consumers save money. The aspects of 'people-led' and 'technology-driven' have been around for a long time already."
Many workers in the economy have expressed their concern that AI will replace their jobs. Waggoner states that Walmart is indeed looking for ways to utilize the automated fulfillment center processes of AI, such as using robots to reduce some friction, but the goal of their technological application is "to reduce some friction, use robots to provide assistance, and then truly focus the work on human judgment."
In fact, Waggoner mentioned that in the company's innovation laboratory located in Dallas, Texas, automation efforts have reduced the physical tasks previously performed by humans, and as a result, more positions related to quality assurance have been created, rather than widespread layoffs.
On the front lines of stores, Waggoner said that Walmart has found that its customers "actually prefer to interact with people at the checkout counter."
This allows employees to focus their efforts on using AI to solve customer issues.
Waggoner mentioned that a Mexican store manager she met earlier this year set up her own AI agent to view reports and promote fresh food sales.
She said, "He is using tools, but he is still managing the store. The position of store manager still exists. He is leveraging tools and technology to drive his business forward. By the way, his fresh food sales performance is very good."
