Walmart Data Ventures is evolving Scintilla into what it calls a “commerce intelligence platform,” unveiling a roadmap at its Inspire 2026 event that promises suppliers a more integrated view of their Walmart business, faster AI-driven understanding and a shorter path from insight to action.
More than 2,000 suppliers and Walmart merchants gathered in Rogers, Arkansas, for Inspire, the unit’s largest annual supplier event yet and a marker of the platform’s growth; the 2024 edition that renamed Walmart Luminate as Scintilla drew about 1,200.
Nearly 30 case studies from the U.S., Mexico and Canada showcased how suppliers are using the insights, and the announcements sharpen Walmart’s position in an escalating race among retailer data businesses, where first-party insights platforms increasingly anchor how trade spending, retail media and joint planning come together.
A more integrated view
Scintilla is expanding visibility across more of the retail experience. Next year, the platform will give brands operating in both first-party and Marketplace models a more complete view of their Walmart.com business, uniting insights from their full assortment in one place, a meaningful change for the many CPG suppliers running hybrid models. Scintilla Boards, launched in July, began connecting signals across customer understanding and business performance into one experience, with customizable boards on the way to let users organize the metrics most relevant to them.
From insight to action
AI capabilities already highlight what’s driving performance, surface changes in shopping behavior and summarize customer research, while Marty for Scintilla helps users understand metrics and features inside the platform. The company said the assistant will evolve into conversational AI grounded in Walmart’s first-party data, able to explore complex business questions and build custom dashboards, with personalized alerts proactively flagging what matters to each user.
The roadmap’s endpoint is closing the loop between knowing and doing. Walmart described a user spotting a key item at risk of going out of stock in 50 stores and moving directly from Scintilla into the replenishment system; no platform-toggling required. Scintilla Insights Activation already connects insights to Walmart Connect for media campaigns, and as Scintilla In-Store advances, the field-representative platform launched in February on the rebuilt Volt technology, AI-powered recommendations will help supplier reps see what needs attention and act in the aisle.
Walmart Data Ventures framed the broader vision as a connected path from integrated visibility to intelligence to action, pairing the retailer’s first-party data with technology and the supplier community gathered at Inspire.