Walmart is entering the drone, AI, and technology races. It won’t be simple, though, to fulfill the promise of a high-tech retail future in a market where others have failed.
For the first time, the bigbox retailer included Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in addition to CEO Doug McMillon and a slew of other executives in a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Throughout the hour-long presentation, the main message was that customers would find shopping at Sam’s Club and Walmart to be more faster and more convenient.
The biggest consumer technology conference of the year, CES also doubles as a big sales event where businesses showcase their newest products in an attempt to draw in investors and buyers, frequently before they begin to use them in production.
Drone delivery
Walmart has already made 20,000 drone deliveries in the past two years, but in 2024 it is going all in on the Dallas-Fort Worth Area. The superstore announced that it is offering drone delivery for up to 75% of the Dallas area’s population, or about 1.8 million homes.
But drone delivery as a concept isn’t new, and Walmart’s timeline to take off in Dallas is remarkably short.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos revealed delivery drones on “60 Minutes” nearly a decade ago, but the technology has long faced regulatory, technical, and financial problems for tech companies.
