Walmart $WMT ( ▲ 3.0% ) is one of the few green names in a market full of red this morning, climbing about 3.5% in premarket trading after announcing a new AI partnership with Google that lets users browse and buy Walmart and Sam’s Club products directly through Gemini.
The news also comes right as Walmart is set to score another major win for visibility and flows: joining the Nasdaq-100 Index.
Gemini Becomes Walmart’s New Front Door
Walmart’s new partnership with Google will integrate its product discovery and shopping experience directly into Gemini, meaning when users ask the chatbot for shopping advice, Walmart items can appear automatically as recommendations.
The experience will run through Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), which Walmart described as a new open standard for agentic commerce and AI tools that Google developed alongside multiple retailers and launched Sunday.
If users link their Walmart and Gemini accounts, Walmart said they will also be able to:
get recommendations based on previous purchases
apply any membership benefits they have
create a more personalized “inspiration to checkout” flow inside Gemini
Search Bars Are Out, AI Agents Are In
Walmart’s chief e-commerce officer David Guggina summed up the strategy clearly: the world is “moving past the era of the search bar.”
That’s the whole bet here. Walmart is positioning itself not just where people shop, but where people ask questions, plan life, and decide what to buy, which increasingly means inside AI chatbots.
And this move is not coming out of nowhere.
This Gemini integration builds on Walmart’s OpenAI partnership announced in October, which enabled ChatGPT users to browse and purchase Walmart products via Walmart’s web and app platforms.
Fast Delivery Is the Real Weapon
Beyond discovery and personalization, Walmart is also leaning hard into logistics. The company emphasized that Gemini-driven shopping will connect into Walmart’s delivery engine, including:
delivery in under 3 hours for hundreds of thousands of locally curated items
delivery as fast as 30 minutes for certain products
In AI shopping, convenience wins. Walmart is trying to make sure the last mile is not just available, but unbeatable.
Nasdaq-100 Inclusion Adds Fuel
Separate from the AI news, Nasdaq revealed that Walmart will officially join the Nasdaq-100 Index prior to market open on January 20.
That matters because inclusion can drive passive flows and institutional positioning, especially with large index funds that are forced to buy.
Bottom line: Walmart is turning Gemini into a new sales channel, getting added to the Nasdaq-100, and reminding investors it’s not just a retail giant. It’s becoming an AI-powered commerce platform with delivery infrastructure that most tech companies cannot replicate.