Donna Morris: The US Must Prioritise AI Upskilling

As AI begins to make sweeping changes to the way businesses operate, many leading organisations are investing in large-scale upskilling initiatives. 

According to Donna Morris, Chief People Officer of Walmart, ensuring that both the current and next generation of workers are suitably upskilled in AI is crucial for long-term business competitiveness. 

In conversation with Fortune, she said: “Let’s look at China. “Five-year-olds are learning DeepSeek, and that says a lot about how they believe in capability building. 

“What would it do to our US economy, if we all leaned into that opportunity?”

AI upskilling at Walmart

Walmart itself is looking to widen opportunities for workers to develop AI skills, as part of a nearly US$1bn investment in skills training for all of its 1.6 million employees. 

The company has partnered with Google as part of the launch of its Google AI professional Certificate – designed to help bridge the AI skills gap. 

Google says the certificate focuses on the most critical areas of skills development, such as communication, research, data analysis, content generation, planning and vibe coding. 

As part of this certification, Walmart employees are provided with the opportunity to experiment with AI in the context of their roles through job-focused training. 

This is being rolled out to all staff, following Walmart’s integration of AI tools across the business – including on its shop floor, where it has introduced AI led task management to reduce shift planning time. 

Donna said: “I think the interesting and also exciting thing with AI is it’s almost job agnostic. Regardless of what job you’re in, how I might use AI for my job might be different than you use it or somebody else uses it. So, why not equip everybody?”

Improving AI competitiveness in the US

According to EY’s 2025 Work Reimagined survey, while 88% of employees are now using AI, businesses are missing out on up to 40% of potential productivity gains. 

To improve business competitiveness, Google and the US Chamber of Commerce have launched a nationwide training programme designed to help small business owners in the US grow revenue and be more productive through AI. 

The initiative is designed to help reduce the AI skills gap and encourage business owners to view the technology as an essential tool. 

Discussing the initiative Christopher Turner, Global Head of Knowledge and Information Products in Government Affairs and Public Policy at Google, told Forbes: “Your greatest risk is your competitor figuring out how to use this stuff faster than you.”

A trillion dollar business 

In February 2026, Walmart became the first retailer to have a trillion dollar market valuation, driven in part by its AI adoption. 

Under former CEO Doug McMillon, the retail giant partnered with OpenAI to integrate shipping tools into AI-powered chatbots. 

At the time of the announcement, Walmart said: “The future of retail isn’t about replacing human connection with machines, it’s about using AI to remove friction and make everyday moments easier, smarter and more delightful.”

Moves such as this have led to significant changes in the way the business operates, with Donna telling Fortune that there needs to be “active engagement” in employee upskilling to see success.

“We as big employers should be actively engaged in trying to equip our respective employees – in our case associates – to be prepared for a world that is AI enabled and automated or digitised,” Donna said.

“If all of us collectively leaned into our workforces, where might we be?”